Re: [PATCH 4/9] csum-file: provide a function to release checkpoints

[Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>]

On Thu, Jul 02, 2026 at 04:03:19AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> A hashfile_checkpoint struct is basically just a copy of the hash_ctx
> state at a given point in the file. As such, it contains its own
> git_hash_ctx which may (depending on the underlying hash implementation)
> need to be discarded when we're done with it.
> 
> Let's add a "release" function which cleans up the hash context it
> holds. I chose "release" here and not "discard" because you'd use this
> to clean up every checkpoint, whether you used it or not. As opposed to
> git_hash_discard(), which is needed only if you didn't call
> git_hash_final().

Okay, I was wondering about that a bit. With this explanation I'm also
somewhat fine with the `git_hash_discard()` name. It's still a function
that has release semantics, but you want to convey more intent than
that.

One thing I was wondering: is it safe to have a `git_hash_discard()`
that is being called on a potentially-already-discarded hash? If so, we
wouldn't have to discern whether the hash context was used successfully
or not.

Patrick