Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/1] refs: add 'preparing' phase to the reference-transaction hook

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2026 09:24:56 -0700

Eric Ju <[email-masked]> writes:

> +	/* Preparing checks before locking references */
> +	ret = run_transaction_hook(transaction, "preparing");
> +	if (ret) {
> +		ref_transaction_abort(transaction, err);
> +		die(_("ref updates aborted by the reference-transaction hook at its %s state"), "preparing");
> +	}

On end-user's terminal, the above should look like

fatal: ref updates aborted by the reference-transaction hook at its parparing state

consuming more than 80 columns and having the varying part of the
message at the very end.  Can we shorten this and highlight the more
important bits?  Here is my attempt

		die(_("in '%s' phase, update aborted by the reference-transaction hook"),
			"preparing");

Enclosing the phase name in 'quotes' and moving it near the
beginning are both my attempt to make it stand out more.

Another thing you may want to consider is to extract the message to
a separate constant, i.e.,

	const char *abort_by_ref_transaction_hook[] =
	N_("in '%s' phase, update aborted by the reference-transaction hook");

and reuse at two places, perhaps?

		die(_(abort_by_ref_transaction_hook), "preparing");