Re: [PATCH 1/3] rebase: guard against missing files in read_basic_state()

[Martin von Zweigbergk <martinvonz@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Jun 13, 2013 at 3:29 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com> writes:
>
> A more troublesome is that nobody seems to check the return value of
> this function.  If head-name, onto or orig-head is missing, is that
> an error condition that should make the callers of read_basic_state
> stop and refuse to proceed?

Since we unconditionally write those three (and 'quiet'), it seems
reasonable to require all of them to be there when continuing, so I
think you're right that we should fail fast.

> The way the && cascade is used seems to indicate that, but up to the
> point where it sents $verbose. If and only if head-name, onto, orig-head
> and quiet can be read in state-dir, verbose in state-dir is checked
> and only then $verbose is set.
>
> Martin, this seems to be from your series around early Feburary
> 2011.  Do you recall why these checks are cascaded this way?
> I do not offhand think of a good reason.

Neither do I. I think the cascading after 'quiet' is just a mistake on
my part. The consequences are probably close to none, since if one of
earlier commands fail, the other files will probably not be there
either. (Not defending it; I'm happy if it gets fixed, e.g. by making
it fail fast.)