Re: [PATCH/RFC] doc: document error handling functions and conventions (Re: [PATCH 03/14] copy_fd: pass error message back through a strbuf)

On 02/13/2015 12:08 AM, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

On Fri, Dec 05, 2014 at 10:00:05AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

I am more worried about variable length part pushing the information
that is given later out to the right, e.g. "error: missing file '%s'
prevents us from doing X".  Chomping to [1024] is not a good
strategy for that kind of message; abbreviating %s to /path/name/...
(again, with literally "...") would be.

I have this one in my pile of Undecided topics:

    * jn/doc-api-errors (2014-12-04) 1 commit
     - doc: document error handling functions and conventions

     For discussion.
     What's the status of this one????

I think we all agree that the early part of the new documentation
text is good, but the last section that proposes to store more
detailed errors in caller supplied strbuf in textual form was
controversial (and I have not convinced myself it is a good idea
yet).

I could chuck the last section and then start merging the remainder
to 'next' to salvage the "obviously good bits".  Or do people want
to hash its last section a bit more?

Whether or not we decide on a different error-handling convention in the
future, it is a fact of life that a good bit of code already uses the
"strbuf" convention documented by Jonathan's patch. So I think it is OK
to merge it as is. If we change the preferred convention in the future,
one part of the change will be to update this file.

Michael

-- 
Michael Haggerty
mhagger@alum.mit.edu