Git Mailing List Archive mirror
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Linus Arver <linusa@google.com>
To: Glen Choo <chooglen@google.com>,
	Linus Arver via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>,
	git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/5] trailer: separate public from internal portion of trailer_iterator
Date: Thu, 10 Aug 2023 15:50:27 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <owly1qgah5qk.fsf@fine.c.googlers.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <kl6l8rama6yj.fsf@chooglen-macbookpro.roam.corp.google.com>

Glen Choo <chooglen@google.com> writes:

> As someone who isn't that familiar with trailer code, and will have less
> time for the ML soon, this is more of a quick drive-by..

Aren't you also going on vacation soon? ;-)

> "Linus Arver via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> +#define private __private_to_trailer_c__do_not_use
>> +
>>  void trailer_iterator_init(struct trailer_iterator *iter, const char *msg)
>>  {
>>  	struct process_trailer_options opts = PROCESS_TRAILER_OPTIONS_INIT;
>>  	strbuf_init(&iter->key, 0);
>>  	strbuf_init(&iter->val, 0);
>>  	opts.no_divider = 1;
>> -	trailer_info_get(&iter->info, msg, &opts);
>> -	iter->cur = 0;
>> +	trailer_info_get(&iter->private.info, msg, &opts);
>> +	iter->private.cur = 0;
>>  }
>> --- a/trailer.h
>> +++ b/trailer.h
>> @@ -119,8 +119,10 @@ struct trailer_iterator {
>>  	struct strbuf val;
>>...
>>  	/* private */
>> -	struct trailer_info info;
>> -	size_t cur;
>> +	struct {
>> +		struct trailer_info info;
>> +		size_t cur;
>> +	} __private_to_trailer_c__do_not_use;
>>  };
>
> [...]
>
> This is the first instance of this I could find in the codebase. I'm not
> really opposed to having a new way of doing things, but it would be nice
> for us to be consistent with how we handle private members. Other
> approaches I've seen are:
>
> - Using a "larger" struct to hold private members and "downcasting" for
>   public users (struct dir_iterator and struct dir_iterator_int). I
>   dislike this because I think this enables 'wrong' memory access too
>   easily.
>   [...]
> - Prefixing private members with "__" (khash.h and other header-only
>   libraries use this at least, not sure if we have this in the 'main
>   tree'). I think this works pretty well most of the time.
> - Just marking private members with a comment. IMO this is good enough
>   the vast majority of the time - if something is private for a good
>   reason, it's unlikely to get used accidentally anyway. But properly
>   enforcing "privateness" is worthy goal anyway.

Thanks for documenting these other approaches.

I prefer the "larger" struct to hold private members pattern. More
specifically I like the container_of approach pointed out by Jacob [2],
because it is an established pattern in the Linux Kernel and because we
already sort of use the same idea in the list_head type we imported from
the Kernel in 94e99012fc (http-walker: reduce O(n) ops with
doubly-linked list, 2016-07-11). That is, for example for the
new_trailer_item struct we have

    struct new_trailer_item {
        struct list_head list;
        <list item stuff>
    };

and to me this is symmetric to the container_of pattern described by Jacob:

    struct dir_entry_private {
        struct dir_entry entry;
        <private stuff>
    };

Accordingly, we are already doing the "structure pointer math" (which
Jacob described in [2]) for list_head in list.h:

    /* Get typed element from list at a given position. */
    #define list_entry(ptr, type, member) \
        ((type *) ((char *) (ptr) - offsetof(type, member)))

In this patch series though, I decided to just stick with giving the
struct a private-sounding name, because I don't think we reached
consensus on what the preferred approach is for separating
public/private fields.

>   (As an aside, if we really wanted to 'strictly' enforce privateness in
>   this patch, shouldn't we move the "#define private" into the .c file,
>   the way dir_iterator_int is in the .c file?)

I think you meant moving the struct into the .c file (the "#define" is
already in the .c file).

> Personally, I think a decent tradeoff between enforcement and ergonomics
> would be to use an inner struct like you do here, but name it something
> autocomplete-friendly and obviously private, like "private" or
> "_private".

SGTM. I think I'll go with "internal" though, to align with 576de3d956
(unpack_trees: start splitting internal fields from public API,
2023-02-27) which Phillip pointed out. Will reroll.

> I suspect self-regulation and code review should be enough
> to catch nearly all accidental uses of private members.

Ack. In the future, if and when we want compiler-level guarantees to
make it impossible (this was the discussion at [1]), we can revisit this
area.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/16ff5069-0408-21cd-995c-8b47afb9810d@github.com/
[2] https://lore.kernel.org/git/CA+P7+xo02dGkjb5DwJ1Af_hoQ5HiuxASheZxoFz+r6B-6cQMug@mail.gmail.com/

  parent reply	other threads:[~2023-08-10 22:50 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 72+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-08-05  5:04 [PATCH 0/5] Trailer readability cleanups Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-05  5:04 ` [PATCH 1/5] trailer: separate public from internal portion of trailer_iterator Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-07 21:16   ` Glen Choo
2023-08-08 12:19     ` Phillip Wood
2023-08-10 23:15       ` Linus Arver
2023-08-10 22:50     ` Linus Arver [this message]
2023-08-05  5:04 ` [PATCH 2/5] trailer: split process_input_file into separate pieces Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-07 22:39   ` Glen Choo
2023-08-11  0:41     ` Linus Arver
2023-08-05  5:04 ` [PATCH 3/5] trailer: split process_command_line_args into separate functions Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-07 22:51   ` Glen Choo
2023-08-11  0:59     ` Linus Arver
2023-08-11  1:02       ` Linus Arver
2023-08-11 21:11       ` Glen Choo
2023-08-05  5:04 ` [PATCH 4/5] trailer: teach find_patch_start about --no-divider Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-07 23:28   ` Glen Choo
2023-08-11  1:25     ` Linus Arver
2023-08-11 20:51       ` Glen Choo
2023-08-05  5:04 ` [PATCH 5/5] trailer: rename *_DEFAULT enums to *_UNSPECIFIED Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-08-07 23:45   ` Glen Choo
2023-08-11 18:00     ` Linus Arver
2023-09-09  6:16 ` [PATCH v2 0/6] Trailer readability cleanups Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 1/6] trailer: separate public from internal portion of trailer_iterator Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-11 17:10     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 2/6] trailer: split process_input_file into separate pieces Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-11 17:10     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 3/6] trailer: split process_command_line_args into separate functions Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 4/6] trailer: teach find_patch_start about --no-divider Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-11 17:25     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-14  2:19       ` Linus Arver
2023-09-14  3:12         ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-14  5:31           ` Linus Arver
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 5/6] trailer: rename *_DEFAULT enums to *_UNSPECIFIED Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-11 18:54     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-14  2:41       ` Linus Arver
2023-09-14  3:16         ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-22 18:23           ` Linus Arver
2023-09-22 19:48             ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-26  5:30               ` Linus Arver
2023-09-09  6:16   ` [PATCH v2 6/6] trailer: use offsets for trailer_start/trailer_end Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-11 19:01     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-14  1:21       ` Linus Arver
2023-09-14  3:18         ` Linus Arver
2023-09-22 19:50   ` [PATCH v3 0/9] Trailer readability cleanups Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 1/9] trailer: separate public from internal portion of trailer_iterator Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 2/9] trailer: split process_input_file into separate pieces Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 3/9] trailer: split process_command_line_args into separate functions Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 4/9] trailer: rename *_DEFAULT enums to *_UNSPECIFIED Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 5/9] commit: ignore_non_trailer computes number of bytes to ignore Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 6/9] trailer: find the end of the log message Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 7/9] trailer: use offsets for trailer_start/trailer_end Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 8/9] trailer: only use trailer_block_* variables if trailers were found Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 19:50     ` [PATCH v3 9/9] trailer: make stack variable names match field names Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-22 22:47     ` [PATCH v3 0/9] Trailer readability cleanups Junio C Hamano
2023-09-22 23:13       ` Linus Arver
2023-09-23  0:48         ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-26  5:40           ` Linus Arver
2023-09-26  6:22     ` [PATCH v4 0/4] " Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-26  6:22       ` [PATCH v4 1/4] commit: ignore_non_trailer computes number of bytes to ignore Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-26  6:22       ` [PATCH v4 2/4] trailer: find the end of the log message Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-28 23:16         ` Jonathan Tan
2023-10-20  0:24           ` Linus Arver
2023-10-20  0:36             ` Junio C Hamano
2023-09-26  6:22       ` [PATCH v4 3/4] trailer: use offsets for trailer_start/trailer_end Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-09-26  6:22       ` [PATCH v4 4/4] trailer: only use trailer_block_* variables if trailers were found Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-10-20 19:01       ` [PATCH v5 0/3] Trailer readability cleanups Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-10-20 19:01         ` [PATCH v5 1/3] commit: ignore_non_trailer computes number of bytes to ignore Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-10-20 19:01         ` [PATCH v5 2/3] trailer: find the end of the log message Linus Arver via GitGitGadget
2023-10-20 21:29           ` Junio C Hamano
2023-12-29  6:42             ` Linus Arver
2023-12-29 21:03               ` Linus Arver
2023-10-20 19:01         ` [PATCH v5 3/3] trailer: use offsets for trailer_start/trailer_end Linus Arver via GitGitGadget

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=owly1qgah5qk.fsf@fine.c.googlers.com \
    --to=linusa@google.com \
    --cc=chooglen@google.com \
    --cc=git@vger.kernel.org \
    --cc=gitgitgadget@gmail.com \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).