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From: Tian Yuchen <cat@malon.dev>
To: git@vger.kernel.org
Cc: gitster@pobox.com, Tian Yuchen <cat@malon.dev>
Subject: [PATCH v3] patch-ids: document intentional const-casting in patch_id_neq()
Date: Mon,  9 Mar 2026 14:51:40 +0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260309065140.108644-1-cat@malon.dev> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20260308150203.86299-1-cat@malon.dev>

The hashmap API requires the comparison function to take const pointers.
However, patch_id_neq() uses lazy evaluation to compute patch IDs on
demand. As established in b3dfeebb (rebase: avoid computing unnecessary
patch IDs, 2016-07-29), this avoids unnecessary work since not all
objects in the hashmap will eventually be compared.

Remove the ten-year-old "NEEDSWORK" comment and formally document
this intentional design trade-off.

Signed-off-by: Tian Yuchen <cat@malon.dev>
---
 patch-ids.c | 9 ++++++++-
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/patch-ids.c b/patch-ids.c
index a5683b462c..1fbc88cbec 100644
--- a/patch-ids.c
+++ b/patch-ids.c
@@ -41,7 +41,14 @@ static int patch_id_neq(const void *cmpfn_data,
 			const struct hashmap_entry *entry_or_key,
 			const void *keydata UNUSED)
 {
-	/* NEEDSWORK: const correctness? */
+	/*
+	 * We drop the 'const' modifier here intentionally.
+	 *
+	 * Even though eptr and entry_or_key are const, we want to
+	 * lazily compute their .patch_id members; see b3dfeebb (rebase:
+	 * avoid computing unnecessary patch IDs, 2016-07-29). So we cast
+	 * the constness away with container_of().
+	 */
 	struct diff_options *opt = (void *)cmpfn_data;
 	struct patch_id *a, *b;
 
-- 
2.43.0


      parent reply	other threads:[~2026-03-09  6:52 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 7+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2026-03-08  4:31 [PATCH] patch-ids: achieve const correctness in patch_id_neq() Tian Yuchen
2026-03-08  6:26 ` Junio C Hamano
2026-03-08 14:42   ` Tian Yuchen
2026-03-08 15:02 ` [PATCH v2] patch-ids: document intentional const-casting " Tian Yuchen
2026-03-09  0:26   ` Junio C Hamano
2026-03-09  6:39     ` cat
2026-03-09  6:51   ` Tian Yuchen [this message]

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