Re: [PATCH 0/7] Fix some bugs in abspath.c

mhagger@alum.mit.edu writes:

From: Michael Haggerty <redacted>

I really just wanted to tidy up filter_refs(), but I've been sucked
into a cascade of recursive yak shaving.  This is my first attempt to
pop the yak stack.

Thanks.

Please note that both absolute_path("") and real_path("") used to
return the current directory followed by a slash.  I believe that this
was a bug, and that it is more appropriate for both functions to
reject the empty string.  The evidence is as follows:

* If this were intended behavior, presumably the return value would
  *not* have a trailing slash.

That is weak.  The only thing you can infer from that observation is
that the presense or absense of trailing '/' would not make any
difference to the caller who wanted a path to the cwd (and is more
convenient if the call is made so that a path relative to the cwd is
tucked after it).

* I couldn't find any callers that appeared to depend on the old
  behavior.

That is a very good argument (especially if the audit were
thorough).

I would be tempted to say that we should die() on "" for now, cook
the result outside "master" for a few weeks while auditing the
callchains, and see if any of them complains.