Re: [PATCHv2 1/4] refs: add common refname_match_patterns()

On Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 08:12:54AM +0100, Michael Haggerty wrote:

On 02/11/2012 03:16 AM, Tom Grennan wrote:

quoted

diff --git a/refs.h b/refs.h
index 00ba1e2..13015ba 100644
--- a/refs.h
+++ b/refs.h

@@ -152,4 +152,12 @@ int update_ref(const char *action, const char *refname,
 		const unsigned char *sha1, const unsigned char *oldval,
 		int flags, enum action_on_err onerr);
 
+/**
+ * Returns:
+ *   1 with NULL patterns
+ *   0 if refname fnmatch()es any ! prefaced pattern
+ *   1 if refname fnmatch()es any pattern
+ */
+extern int refname_match_patterns(const char **patterns, const char *refname);
+
 #endif /* REFS_H */

This comment is unclear and incomplete.

1. What does "NULL patterns" mean?  Your code fails if patterns==NULL,
so I guess you mean "1 if there are no patterns in the list".

2. Since the three conditions are not mutually exclusive, you should say
how they are connected.  I believe that you want something like "A
otherwise B otherwise C".

3. You haven't specified what happens if refname matches neither a
!-prefixed pattern nor a non-!-prefixed pattern.  Does this behavior
depend on which types of patterns were present in the list?

I see that you have described the behavior more completely in the commit
message for patch 2/4, but the commit message is not enough: this
behavior should be described precisely in both code comments (when the
function is defined) and in the user documentation (when the
functionality is added to a command).

Yes, I didn't explicitly state that the precedence is the order written
and in correctly described the first case. How about?

/**
 * Returns in highest to lowest precedence:
 *   1 with an empty patterns list
 *   0 if refname fnmatch()es any ^ prefaced pattern
 *   1 if refname fnmatch()es any other pattern
 *   0 otherwise
 */

Thanks,
TomG