Re: [PATCH v2 00/10] reftable: stop using `struct strbuf`

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 06:44:35PM -0400, Taylor Blau wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 14, 2024 at 03:02:16PM +0200, Patrick Steinhardt wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > this is the second part of my patch series that stop using `struct
> > strbuf` in the reftable library. This is done such that the reftable
> > library becomes standalone again and so that we can use the pluggable
> > allocators part of the library.
> 
> I reviewed this round, and it looks generally good to me. I feel
> somewhat unhappy to have to force the reftable backend to implement its
> own strbuf-like functionality.
> 
> So I think it may be worth considering whether or not we can reuse Git's
> strbuf implementation through a vtable or similar. But it may not be
> immediately possible since that implementation just die()s on error,
> can't easily swap out the allocator, etc. So perhaps this is the best
> path forward, it just feels somewhat unsatisfying to me.

It's not perfect, I agree. I initially tried to do something like a
vtable or to even compile this into code with something like a wrapper
structure. But that approach in the end fell flat. So I decided to be
pragmatic about this whole issue and just duplicate some code --
overall, we are talking about ~200 lines of code to completely detangle
the reftable library from libgit.a.

For what it's worth, I also had this discussion with Junio in [1], in
which we ultimately agreed that this is probably the best way forward.

Patrick

[1]: <ZvVPiIzzLTTb75b8@pks.im>