Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/4] remote: return non-const pointer from error_buf()

From: Patrick Steinhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2026 07:33:58 +0100

On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 12:19:45AM -0500, Jeff King wrote:
> We have an error_buf() helper that functions a bit like our error()
> helper, but returns NULL instead of -1. Its return type is "const char
> *", but this is overly restrictive. If we use the helper in a function
> that returns non-const "char *", the compiler will complain about
> the implicit cast from const to non-const.
> 
> Meanwhile, the const in the helper is doing nothing useful, as it only
> ever returns NULL. Let's drop the const, which will let us use it in
> both types of function.

This function signature is indeed quite misleading, and I'd argue that
it continues to be so even after the change. I guess the intent is to
make it a bit easier to print an error in functions that return a
string.

I'm not really a huge fan of this, but it's not a fault of this patch
series, so let's read on.

Patrick