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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox•com>
To: Tanay Abhra <tanayabh@gmail•com>
Cc: git@vger•kernel.org, Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail•com>,
	Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp•fr>,
	Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco•com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] string-list: Add string_list initializer helper functions
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 15:10:26 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqr42njigd.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <53A09192.2030008@gmail.com> (Tanay Abhra's message of "Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:05:54 -0700")

Tanay Abhra <tanayabh@gmail•com> writes:

> On 06/16/2014 03:59 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Tanay Abhra <tanayabh@gmail•com> writes:
>> 
>>> When a compound construct like a string_list within another
>>> struct is used, the default initializer macros are useless.
>>> For such cases add helper functions for string_list
>>> initialization for both DUP and NODUP modes.
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Tanay Abhra <tanayabh@gmail•com>
>>> ---
>> 
>> 
>> Sorry, but I do not understand the above "useless".  Do you mean to
>> say that xyzzy below cannot be initialized that way?
>>  ...
> I was actually explaining for cases like below,
> ...
> +		string_list_init_dup(&e->value_list);

If that is what you wanted to refer to, I would have to say
"useless" is placing a stress on a wrong place.  (I do not see
anything wrong with your new code; it was just the way it was
explained in the proposed log message was misleading).

Structure initialisers are not something you can assign to a
variable anyway, and calling them "useless" is like complaining how
unwieldty hammers are on screws.  "Hammers are useless on screws"
may not be technically wrong per-se, but the readers won't be helped
by hearing it very much.

Instead, you would want to explain what your new invention, a
screwdriver, is and how it is intended to be used.

We of course have precedences for this kind of thing.  STRBUF_INIT
is for definition-time initialisation and strbuf_init() is to
initialise an uninitialised piece of memory to be used as a strbuf.

I tend to think it was a long-time misdesign of string-list API to
have the STRING_LIST_INIT* definition-time initialisers without
having runtime string_list_init*() initialisers, and it is a good
idea to add them to complete the API.

If I were writing the log message for this, I would just say:

	The string-list API has STRING_LIST_INIT_* macros to be used
	to define variables with initialisers, but lacks functions
	to initialise an uninitialised piece of memory to be used as
	a string-list at the run-time.

        Introduce string_list_init_{dup,nodup}() functions for that.

or something.

  reply	other threads:[~2014-06-17 22:10 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2014-06-16  8:27 [PATCH v2 0/2] Git config cache & special querying api utilizing the cache Tanay Abhra
2014-06-16  8:27 ` [PATCH v2 1/2] string-list: Add string_list initializer helper functions Tanay Abhra
2014-06-16 22:59   ` Junio C Hamano
2014-06-17 19:05     ` Tanay Abhra
2014-06-17 22:10       ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2014-06-16  8:27 ` [PATCH v2 2/2] config: Add hashtable for config parsing & retrieval Tanay Abhra
2014-06-16 17:11   ` Matthieu Moy
2014-06-16 17:28     ` Tanay Abhra
2014-06-16 17:35       ` Matthieu Moy
2014-06-17  5:34   ` Jeff King
2014-06-17  5:46     ` Jeff King

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