Patrick Steinhardt <ps@xxxxxx> writes: > +static const struct parse_cmd { > + const char *prefix; > + const char *(*fn)(struct ref_transaction *, struct strbuf *, const char *); > +} commands[] = { Do not call an array the represents a set of THINGs "type things[]"; instead call it "type thing[]", so that the 0th thing can be referred to as thing[0], not things[0]. One exception is when the set as a whole is referred to more often than individual element of an array, in which case "things" (without the [index]) becomes a sensible way to refer to the set. > + { "update", parse_cmd_update }, > + { "create", parse_cmd_create }, > + { "delete", parse_cmd_delete }, > + { "verify", parse_cmd_verify }, > + { "option", parse_cmd_option }, > +}; > + > static void update_refs_stdin(struct ref_transaction *transaction) > { > struct strbuf input = STRBUF_INIT; > const char *next; > + int i; > > if (strbuf_read(&input, 0, 1000) < 0) > die_errno("could not read from stdin"); > next = input.buf; > /* Read each line dispatch its command */ > while (next < input.buf + input.len) { > + const struct parse_cmd *cmd = NULL; > + > if (*next == line_termination) > die("empty command in input"); > else if (isspace(*next)) > die("whitespace before command: %s", next); > - else if (skip_prefix(next, "update ", &next)) > - next = parse_cmd_update(transaction, &input, next); > - else if (skip_prefix(next, "create ", &next)) > - next = parse_cmd_create(transaction, &input, next); > - else if (skip_prefix(next, "delete ", &next)) > - next = parse_cmd_delete(transaction, &input, next); > - else if (skip_prefix(next, "verify ", &next)) > - next = parse_cmd_verify(transaction, &input, next); > - else if (skip_prefix(next, "option ", &next)) > - next = parse_cmd_option(&input, next); > - else > + > + for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(commands); i++) { > + if (!skip_prefix(next, commands[i].prefix , &next)) > + continue; > + cmd = &commands[i]; > + break; > + } The only reason why you had to sprinkle if (!skip_prefix(next, " ", &next)) die(_("%s: missing space after command"), cmd); all over the place is because the table lacks the trailing SP (which makes sense---after all, you are making a table of commands). In other words, it's not like some command called from this dispatcher would require " " after the command name and some others would not. So why not avoid touching the parse_cmd_<cmd>() at all (except for the "option" thing that now needs to take the transaction object for uniformity), and then verify the presence of " " here, perhaps like this: for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(command); i++) { const char *eoc; if (!skip_prefix(next, commands[i].prefix, &eoc) || *eoc != ' ') continue; cmd = &command[i]; next = eoc; break; } Note that you cannot reuse &next here to future-proof the code; otherwise, you wouldn't be able to add a new command, e.g. "options", that sits next to the existing command "option", in the future. > + if (!cmd) > die("unknown command: %s", next); > > + if (input.buf[strlen(cmd->prefix)] != line_termination && > + input.buf[strlen(cmd->prefix)] != '\0' && > + input.buf[strlen(cmd->prefix)] != ' ') > + die("%s: no separator after command", cmd->prefix); This part of your version does not make sense to me. If the input line began with "update" with some separator that is not a SP, the original would not have matched. But with this code, "update\0" would pass this code and cause cmd->fn() to be called, only to get the input rejected, because next is not pointing to SP. So why do you even need this if statement? > + > + next = cmd->fn(transaction, &input, next); > next++; > } Thanks.