On Fri, Jul 08, 2016 at 08:44:28PM +0200, René Scharfe wrote: > > The question is whether it makes sense for write_file() to die(). It is a > > library function and not every caller can be happy with that function to > > exit the program when some file could not be written, without a chance to > > tell the user what to do about the situation. > > > > If write_file() was defined in builtin/am.c, as a static function, I would > > grudgingly acquiesce, but it is not. > > > > IMO it would be better to fix write_file() to *not* die() but return > > error() instead. > > there is write_file_gently() for that purpose, but it's used only by a > single caller that exits on failure after all, and in fact Peff's series > drops it. Yeah, I always feel funny going in the opposite direction of libification, as in this case. But having looked at the set of current and potential-to-convert callers, I couldn't find a single one which would want the gentle behavior. Any site which doesn't die also wanted something else more complex (e.g., different open options). So I think rather than loading down write_file() with options that will make the simple callers harder to read, we are better off to keep its implementation simple, and let people call its building blocks easily. And I think we already have that; in my final version it really is just xopen/write_in_full/close. So the non-simple sites can still make use of those components. -Peff -- 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