Re: [PATCH v2 03/10] reftable/basics: provide new `reftable_buf` interface
From: Taylor Blau <hidden>
Date: 2024-10-16 20:56:55
On Wed, Oct 16, 2024 at 10:42:44AM +0200, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
On Tue, Oct 15, 2024 at 03:27:29PM -0400, Taylor Blau wrote:quoted
On Tue, Oct 15, 2024 at 01:10:59AM -0400, Eric Sunshine wrote:quoted
On Tue, Oct 15, 2024 at 12:38 AM Patrick Steinhardt [off-list ref] wrote:quoted
On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 06:34:55PM -0400, Taylor Blau wrote:quoted
On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 03:02:24PM +0200, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:quoted
+/* + * Add the given bytes to the buffer. Returns 0 on success, + * REFTABLE_OUT_OF_MEMORY_ERROR on allocation failure. + */ +int reftable_buf_add(struct reftable_buf *buf, const void *data, size_t len);Is there a reason that data is a void-pointer here and not a const char *?Only that it emulates `strbuf_add()`, which also uses a void pointer.The reason for that is because strbuf is a generic byte-array which may contain embedded NULs, and the `const void *` plus `len` emphasizes this property, whereas `const char *` would imply a C-string with no embedded NULs.Thanks, that was the explanation I was missing. Perhaps it is worth re-stating in the commit message here to avoid confusing readers like I was when I first read Patrick's patch ;-).Does it make sense to explicitly state how the interfaces look like though? I don't do that for the other functions either, and for most of the part I just reuse the exact same function arguments as we had with the strbuf interface.
I don't feel very strongly about it, but I had suggested it because my
initial read of this patch confused me, and I had wondered if others may
be similarly confused.
For what it's worth, I was thinking something on the order of the
following added to the patch message:
Note that the reftable_buf_add() function intentionally takes a "const
void *" instead of a "const char *" (as does its strbuf counterpart,
strbuf_add()) to emphasize that the buffer may contain NUL characters.
But, as I said, I don't feel very strongly about it.
Thanks,
Taylor