Ronnie Sahlberg wrote: > --- a/refs.c > +++ b/refs.c [...] > @@ -3385,6 +3408,9 @@ int ref_transaction_update(struct ref_transaction *transaction, > { > struct ref_update *update; > > + if (transaction->state != REF_TRANSACTION_OPEN) > + return -1; I still think this is a step in the wrong direction. It means that instead of being able to do if (ref_transaction_update(..., &err)) die("%s", err.buf); and be certain that err.buf has a meaningful message, now I have to worry that if the state were not REF_TRANSACTION_OPEN (e.g., due to someone else's code forgetting to handle an error) then the result would be a plain fatal: The behavior would be much easier to debug if the code were if (transaction->state != REF_TRANSACTION_OPEN) die("BUG: update on transaction that is not open"); since then the symptom would be fatal: BUG: update on transaction that is not open which is easier to work with. If a non-OPEN state were a normal, recoverable error, then it could append a message to the *err argument. But there's no message that could be put there that would be meaningful to the end-user. So I suspect it's not a normal, recoverable error. If we want to collect errors to make _commit() later fail with a message like '38 refs failed to update' or something (or a string_list, if the API is to change that way in the future), then _update() should not fail. It can record information about what is wrong with this update in the transaction and succeed so the caller knows to keep going and collect other updates before the _commit() that will fail. Of course it's easily possible I'm missing something. That's just how I see it now. Does that make sense? Jonathan -- 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