On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 1:52 PM, Stefan Beller [off-list ref] wrote:

On Tue, Jan 30, 2018 at 3:25 PM, Elijah Newren [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

+               /*
+                * Stupid double negatives in remove_file; it somehow manages
+                * to repeatedly mess me up.  So, just for myself:
+                *    1) update_wd iff !ren_src_was_dirty.
+                *    2) no_wd iff !update_wd
+                *    3) so, no_wd == !!ren_src_was_dirty == ren_src_was_dirty
+                */

Not sure iff this comment is at the right place and is a good addition to
the code base.

Fair enough, and I should apologize for letting my frustration come
through there.  However, what if I replaced the first two lines of the
comment with:

"Because the double negatives somehow keep confusing me..."

so that it reads:
        /*
         * Because the double negatives somehow keep confusing me...
         *    1) update_wd iff !ren_src_was_dirty.
         *    2) no_wd iff !update_wd
         *    3) so, no_wd == !!ren_src_was_dirty == ren_src_was_dirty
         */

Even if my wording was suboptimal, the rest of the comment did seem
pretty important because I messed up the line after the comment
multiple times.  (You'd think that the odds of getting it right should
be 50/50 and that a simple inversion would fix it, so one could only
mess the line up once, but I'm apparently special).  And then I came
back to look at it later and was still confused.  For some reason, I
seem to need the longer explanation.

However it hints at the underlying issue of a bad API that is provided
by remove_file ?

I'd definitely agree with that.