[PATCH 0/4] cleaning up ref-filter lstrip/rstrip code

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 09:15:57PM -0800, Collin Funk wrote:

> I generally don't like the casts like in rstrip_ref_components and
> rstrip_ref_components because they force you to write this:
> 
>     free((char *)free_ptr);
> 
> And the const doesn't really benefit readability, in my opinion.

Agreed. It is especially egregious in this case because the const
variable is called to_free, and so its only purpose is to be non-const. ;)

> That is a bit of a seperate topic than fixing the warning, though, so
> I left them as-is.

It is a separate topic, but I feel like this is a good opportunity to
make this code less horrible. That is, there are some obvious
low-hanging cleanups that make the code more readable, and as a side
effect we clean up the const confusion. In such cases I think it is
worth veering off the path a little.

I was going to catalog the numerous flaws I found, but by the time I
explained them, I had basically written patches and commit messages. So
here is what I would propose instead. I hope I'm not stealing your
thunder nor knocking us too far off our goal.

The first three I hope are no-brainers, and the final one fixes the
glibc const issue. The fourth is perhaps more risky.

  [1/4]: ref-filter: factor out refname component counting
  [2/4]: ref-filter: simplify lstrip_ref_components() memory handling
  [3/4]: ref-filter: simplify rstrip_ref_components() memory handling
  [4/4]: ref-filter: open-code slash search in rstrip_ref_components()

 ref-filter.c | 54 +++++++++++++++++-----------------------------------
 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+), 37 deletions(-)

-Peff