On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 12:38 PM, Mohit Marathe wrote: >>In https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqqjzpjsbjl.fsf@gitster.g/ Junio says: >> >>"Some places use atoi() immediately followed by strspn() to skip over >>digits, which means they are parsing an integer and want to continue >>reading after the integer, which is incompatible with what >>strtol_i() wants to do. They need either a separate helper or an >>updated strtol_i() that optionally allows you to parse the prefix and >>report where the integer ended, e.g., something like:" >> >>and then he suggests the above helper. >> >>So it seems that the two instances you found look like good places >>where Junio says the new helper could be useful. >> >>Now if you want to continue further on this, I think you would need to >>take a closer look at those two instances to see if replacing atoi() >>there with the new helper would improve something there or not. If you >>find it would improve something, be sure to explain what would be >>improved in the commit message. > >I took a closer look at `builtin/patch-id.c` and it seems replacing `atoi()` (which is >used to parse numbers in the hunk header) wouldn't improve anything, unless I'm >missing something. > >So then I tried finding other places where `atoi()` can be replaced but I find it >difficult to find any reason that would justify the change. >So far I've only looked at few of the MANY occurrences of `atoi()`. >As far as I understand, the only advantage of `strtol_i()` over `atoi()` is better error >handling. And most of places I've seen either already takes care of that or does not >need that at all. I am not sure this is a good idea. The error detection inside strtol_i() reports a -1 if the supplied text value is invalid. This does not differentiate between an invalid value and a valid "-1" supplied. Replacing all instances of atoi() with strtol_i() will likely cause breakages as the error semantics are different between the two. --Randall
