If loading the index fails, we print an error and then return "-1" from the function. But since this is a builtin, we end up with exit(-1), which produces odd results since program exit codes are unsigned. Because of integer conversion, it usually becomes 255, which is at least still an error, but values above 128 are usually interpreted as signal death. Since we know the program is exiting immediately, we can just replace the error return with a die(). Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> --- I'm actually not sure this can be triggered in practice; see patch 4 for more discussion. Regardless, it seems like a strict improvement. builtin/diff-files.c | 8 ++------ 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-) diff --git a/builtin/diff-files.c b/builtin/diff-files.c index 50330b8dd2..2e3e948583 100644 --- a/builtin/diff-files.c +++ b/builtin/diff-files.c @@ -80,14 +80,10 @@ int cmd_diff_files(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) (rev.diffopt.output_format & DIFF_FORMAT_PATCH)) diff_merges_set_dense_combined_if_unset(&rev); - if (repo_read_index_preload(the_repository, &rev.diffopt.pathspec, 0) < 0) { - perror("repo_read_index_preload"); - result = -1; - goto cleanup; - } + if (repo_read_index_preload(the_repository, &rev.diffopt.pathspec, 0) < 0) + die_errno("repo_read_index_preload"); result = run_diff_files(&rev, options); result = diff_result_code(&rev.diffopt, result); -cleanup: release_revisions(&rev); return result; } -- 2.42.0.rc2.423.g967ecb4f2b