On 04/28/2014 07:59 PM, Ronnie Sahlberg wrote: > On Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 6:31 PM, Michael Haggerty <mhagger@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On 04/25/2014 06:14 PM, Ronnie Sahlberg wrote: >>> Change ref_transaction_commit to take a pointer to a pointer for the >>> transaction. This allows us to clear the transaction pointer from within >>> ref_transaction_commit so that it becomes NULL in the caller. >>> >>> This makes transaction handling in the callers much nicer since instead of >>> having to write horrible code like : >>> t = ref_transaction_begin(); >>> if ((!t || >>> ref_transaction_update(t, refname, sha1, oldval, flags, >>> !!oldval)) || >>> (ref_transaction_commit(t, action, &err) && !(t = NULL))) { >>> ref_transaction_rollback(t); >>> >>> we can now just do the much nicer >>> t = ref_transaction_begin(); >>> if (!t || >>> ref_transaction_update(t, refname, sha1, oldval, flags, >>> !!oldval) || >>> ref_transaction_commit(&t, action, &err)) { >>> ref_transaction_rollback(t); >> >> I understand the motivation for this change, but passing >> pointer-to-pointer is unconventional in a case like this. Unfortunately >> I ran out of steam for the night before I could think about alternatives. > > I see. > Yes passing a pointer to pointer is not ideal. > But I still want to be able to use the pattern > t = ref_transaction_begin(); > if (!t || > ref_transaction_update(t, ...) || > ref_transaction_commit(t, ...)) { > ref_transaction_rollback(t); > > Maybe the problem is that ref_transaction_commit() implicitely also > frees the transaction. > > > What about changing ref_transaction_commit() would NOT free the > transaction and thus a caller would > always have to explicitely free the transaction afterwards? > > Something like this : > t = ref_transaction_begin(); > if (!t || > ref_transaction_update(t, ...) || > ref_transaction_commit(&t, ...)) { You wouldn't need the "&" here then, right? > ref_transaction_rollback(t); > } > ref_transaction_free(t); That sounds like a better solution. We would want to make sure that ref_transaction_commit() / ref_transaction_rollback() leaves the ref_transaction in a state that if it is accidentally passed to ref_transaction_update() or its friends, the function calls die("BUG: ..."). Unless we want to make ref_transaction objects reusable. But then we would need an explicit "allocation" step in the boilerplate code: t = ref_transaction_alloc(); while (something) { if (ref_transaction_begin(t) || ref_transaction_update(t, ...) || ref_transaction_commit(t, ...)) { ref_transaction_rollback(t); } } ref_transaction_free(t); Note that ref_transaction_begin() should in this case be converted to return 0-on-OK, negative-on-error for consistency. This would bring us back to the familiar pattern alloc...use...free. I was going to say that the extra boilerplate is not worth it, and anyway reusing ref_transaction objects won't save any significant work. But then it occurred to me that ref_transaction_alloc() might be a place to do more expensive work, like creating a connection to a database, so reuse could potentially be a bigger win. All in all, either way is OK with me. Michael -- Michael Haggerty mhagger@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://softwareswirl.blogspot.com/ -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html