Re: [PATCH v6 2/6] Add git_env_ulong() to parse environment variable

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 02:54:11PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> A worse position is to have git_env_bool() that says "empty is
> false" and add a new git_env_ulong() that says "empty is unset".
> 
> We should pick one or the other and use it for both.

Yeah, I agree they should probably behave the same.

> > The middle ground would be to die(). That does not seem super-friendly, but
> > then we would also die with GIT_SMART_HTTP=foobar, so perhaps it is not
> > unreasonable to just consider it a syntax error.
> 
> Hmm, I am not sure if dying is better.  Unless we decide to make
> empty string no longer false everywhere and warn now and then later
> die as part of a 3.0 transition plan or something, that is.

I think it is better in the sense that while it may be unexpected, it
does not unexpectedly do something that the user cannot easily undo.

I really do not think this topic is worth the effort of a long-term
deprecation scheme (which I agree _is_ required for a change to the
config behavior). Let's just leave it as-is. We've seen zero real-world
complaints, only my own surprise after reading the code (and Steffen's
patch should be tweaked to match).

-Peff