Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/3] git-compat-util: introduce skip_to_opt_val()

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 03 Dec 2017 14:48:59 -0800

Christian Couder <[email-masked]> writes:

> Anyway there is a design choice to be made. Adding a "const char
> *default" argument makes the function more generic,...

I didn't suggest anything of that sort, and I do not understand why
you are repeatedly talking about "default" that you considered and
rejected, as if it were an alternative viable option.  I agree that
"default" is not yet a good idea and it is a solution to a problem
that is not yet shown to exist.  

On the other hand, just assigning NULL to *arg when you did not see
a delimiting '=', on the other hand, is an alternative option that
is viable.

> .... I think setting
> "arg" to NULL increases the risk of crashes and makes it too easy to
> make "--key" and "--key=" behave differently which I think is not
> consistent and not intuitive.

So now this is very specific to the need of command line argument
parsing and is not a generic thing?  You cannot have your cake and
eat it too, though.