On Mon, Jan 16, 2017 at 06:06:35PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > And I think that would apply to any input parameter we show via
> > error(), etc, if it is connected to a newline (ideally we would
> > show newlines as "?", too, but we cannot tell the difference
> > between ones from parameters, and ones that are part of the error
> > message).
>
> I think it is doing users a really great disservice to munge up CR or LF
> into question marks. I *guarantee* you that it confuses users. And not
> because they are dumb, but because the code violates the Law of Least
> Surprise.
I'm not sure if you realize that with stock git, the example from your
test looks like this (at least in my terminal):
$ git.v2.11.0 rev-parse --abbrev-ref "$(printf 'CR/LF\r\n')" >/dev/null
': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
The "\r" causes us to overwrite the rest of the message, including the
actual filename. With my patch it's:
$ git rev-parse --abbrev-ref "$(printf 'CR/LF\r\n')" >/dev/null
fatal: ambiguous argument 'CR/LF?': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions, like this:
'git <command> [<revision>...] -- [<file>...]'
I am certainly sympathetic to the idea that the "?" is ugly and
potentially confusing. But I think it's at least a step forward for this
particular example.
I'll snip liberally from the rest of your response, because I think what
JSixt wrote covers it.
> > > While at it, let's lose the unnecessary curly braces.
> >
> > Please don't. Obviously C treats the "if/else" as a single unit, but
> > IMHO it's less error-prone to include the braces any time there are
> > multiple visual lines. E.g., something like:
> >
> > while (foo)
> > if (bar)
> > one();
> > else
> > two();
> > three();
> >
> > is much easier to spot as wrong when you would require braces either
> > way (and not relevant here, but I'd say that even an inner block with a
> > comment deserves braces for the same reason).
>
> There is no documentation about the preferred coding style.
Documentation/CodingGuidelines says:
- We avoid using braces unnecessarily. I.e.
if (bla) {
x = 1;
}
is frowned upon. A gray area is when the statement extends
over a few lines, and/or you have a lengthy comment atop of
it. Also, like in the Linux kernel, if there is a long list
of "else if" statements, it can make sense to add braces to
single line blocks.
I think this is pretty clearly the "gray area" mentioned there. Which
yes, does not say "definitely do it this way", but I hope makes it clear
that you're supposed to use judgement about readability.
-Peff