On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 2:55 PM, Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 15, 2016 at 11:28:20AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> I notice that we have thought about all the issues when we last >> discussed it in 2013. Refining a message from the earlier thread, >> as it illustrates tricky cases in which we have to be careful. > > Thanks for digging up the threads that I was too lazy to find. > > I agree with most everything here, though I would be happy if somebody > even wrote a patch to handle the "easy" cases. So it sounds like removing an empty header is problematic in most cases, but adding a new variable to an existing empty header should not be...? I looked at the code, and had a rough sketch that works as follows: * Make git_parse_source() call the callback in a special way to note that a section header is seen (I hacked it by passing a special value, a pointer to a global string, as the second argument) * Add a new store.last_section_offset field * In store_aux(), if it's getting the special value, and the section name matches, save the offset in store.last_section_offset * In git_config_set_multivar_in_file_gently() right before the "write the first part of the config" comment, test that (store.seen == 1 && copy_begin == 0 && copy_end == contents_sz && store.last_section_offset > 0) and if so, write the contents up to that point, and set copy_begin; if the condition is false, do the same thing it does now * A bit after that, add "&& store.last_section_offset == 0" to the condition that decides whether to call store_write_section() It looks to me like something like this can work, but it's very hacky because I wanted to see if it can work quickly, and because I don't know if this kind of a solution will be wanted, and because I don't know enough about that code in general. Making it be an actual solution involves a better way to call the callback in a special way (my hack does the special thing only if `fn==store_aux`, but it shouldn't), calling it after the last variable in a section is seen so it's added after that. So, will something like this be acceptable? If so, is there anyone who I can ask questions about the code? -- ((x=>x(x))(x=>x(x))) Eli Barzilay: http://barzilay.org/ Maze is Life! -- 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