Re: [Qemu-devel] [RFC] error: auto propagated local_err

[Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>]

On 9/19/19 8:03 AM, Kevin Wolf wrote:

>>
>> Interesting, that to handle error_append_hint problem, we don't need to
>> create local_err in case of errp==NULL either..
>>
>> So, possibly, we need the following steps:
>>
>> 1. implement MAKE_ERRP_SAFE_FOR_HINT (which only leave "*(errp) == error_fatal" in the if condition
>> 2. rebase Greg's series on it, to fix hints for fatal errors
>> 3. implement MAKE_ERRP_SAFE_FOR_DEREFERENCE (which only leave "(errp) == NULL" in the if condition
>> 4. convert all (almost all) local_err usage to use MAKE_ERRP_SAFE_FOR_DEREFERENCE, which will
>>     fix problem with error_abort (and also drop a lot of calls of error_propagate)

Why do we need two macros?  A single MAKE_ERRP_SAFE that covers both
NULL and &error_fatal at the same time is sufficient.  You can then
always use append_hint and/or *errp as you wish, and the
error_propagate() call is only used in two situations: caller passed
NULL (so we free the error as ignored), caller passed &error_fatal (so
the hint got appended before we propagate it to flag a more useful message).

>> 5. merely convert "void func(.., errp)" to "int func(.., errp)" and drop MAKE_ERRP_SAFE_FOR_DEREFERENCE()
>>     magic, together with dereferencing.

That's orthogonal, but may also be useful cleanups.  I don't think we
need to drop the macro, though.

> 
> Long macro names, but as the parameter will always only be "errp", it
> fits easily on a line, so this is fine.
> 
> I think I like this plan.
> 
> Kevin
> 

-- 
Eric Blake, Principal Software Engineer
Red Hat, Inc.           +1-919-301-3226
Virtualization:  qemu.org | libvirt.org