Subject: Re: [GSoC][PATCH 1/5] builtin/pack-refs: factor out core logic into a helper

From: Patrick Steinhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2025 12:18:01 +0200

On Tue, Aug 26, 2025 at 01:06:41PM +0530, Meet Soni wrote:
> The implementation of `git pack-refs` is monolithic within
> `cmd_pack_refs()`, making it impossible to share its logic with other
> commands. To enable code reuse for the upcoming `git refs optimize`
> subcommand, refactor the core logic into a shared helper function.
> 
> Introduce a new `pack-refs.h` header to define the public interface
> for this shared logic. It contains the declaration for a new helper
> function, `pack_refs_core()`, and a macro for the common usage
> options.
> 
> Move the option parsing and packing logic from `cmd_pack_refs()` into a
> new helper function named `pack_refs_core()`. This helper is made
> generic by accepting the command's usage string as a parameter.
> 
> The original `cmd_pack_refs()` is simplified to a thin wrapper that
> is only responsible for defining its specific usage array and calling
> the shared helper.
> 
> Mentored-by: Patrick Steinhardt <[email-masked]>
> Mentored-by: shejialuo <[email-masked]>
> Signed-off-by: Meet Soni <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  builtin/pack-refs.c | 31 ++++++++++++++++++++-----------
>  pack-refs.h         | 22 ++++++++++++++++++++++
>  2 files changed, 42 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
>  create mode 100644 pack-refs.h

Shouldn't that header live in "builtin/pack-refs.h"? Makes it way more
obvious that it exposes functions from "builtin/pack-refs.c".

> diff --git a/pack-refs.h b/pack-refs.h
> new file mode 100644
> index 0000000000..ba51d154e3
> --- /dev/null
> +++ b/pack-refs.h
> @@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
> +#ifndef PACK_REFS_H
> +#define PACK_REFS_H
> +
> +struct repository;

Let's add a newline here.

> +/*
> + * Shared usage string for options common to git-pack-refs(1)
> + * and git-refs-optimize(1). The command-specific part (e.g., "git refs optimize ")
> + * must be prepended by the caller.
> + */
> +#define PACK_REFS_OPTS \
> +	"[--all] [--no-prune] [--auto] [--include <pattern>] [--exclude <pattern>]"
> +
> +/*
> + * The core logic for pack-refs and its clones

And a dot after to terminate the sentence.

> + */
> +int pack_refs_core(int argc,
> +		   const char **argv,
> +		   const char *prefix,
> +		   struct repository *repo,
> +		   const char * const *usage_opts);
> +
> +#endif /* PACK_REFS_H */

Patrick