From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/5] sequencer: sequencer state is useless without todo
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:43:33 +0530
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To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Hi,

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:
>
>>>> =C2=A0static int create_seq_dir(void)
>>>> =C2=A0{
>>>> + =C2=A0 =C2=A0 const char *todo_file =3D git_path(SEQ_TODO_FILE);
>>>> =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 const char *seq_dir =3D git_path(SEQ_DIR);
>>>
>>> Scary idiom.
>>
>> What's scary about it?
>
> The next person who copies and pastes this code to other codepaths wi=
thout
> thinking that the return value of git_path() is ephemeral and may nee=
d to
> be saved away depending on what goes between its assignment and its u=
se.

Yeah, git_path() writes to one of the four static buffers in
path.c:get_pathname().  Which brings me to: what should (can) we do
about it?  Explicitly xmalloc()'ing and free()'ing a tiny path buffer
is an overkill, so I'm thinking more on the lines of good
documentation.  I've been guilty of misusing git_path() blindly in the
past myself.

Thanks.

-- Ram