Re: [PATCHv2 1/5] revision.h: turn rev_info.early_output back into an unsigned int

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

> On Fri, Jun 09, 2017 at 08:17:29PM +0200, SZEDER Gábor wrote:
>
>> rev_info.early_output started out as an unsigned int in cdcefbc97 (Add
>> "--early-output" log flag for interactive GUI use, 2007-11-03), but
>> later it was turned into a single bit in a bit field in cc243c3ce
>> (show: --ignore-missing, 2011-05-18) without explanation, though its
>> users still expect it to be a regular integer type.  Consequently, any
>> even number given via '--early-output=<N>' effectively disabled the
>> feature.
>> 
>> Turn it back into an unsigned int, restoring its original data type.
>
> This confused me for a moment, as on my first read it seems like the
> obvious solution is to normalize the input to a bit-field, like:
>
>   revs->early_output = !!atoi(optarg);
>
> But the "users still expect" bit was a bit subtle to me, as I thought
> you meant users of Git. But you mean that the feature itself is not a
> boolean, but rather an integer count of how much early output to show.
>
> I'm not sure if I was just being thick or if that point (and the fact
> that --early-output has basically been a noop since 2011!) should be
> made more explicit.
>
> Given that nobody noticed, I kind of wonder if we should consider
> ripping the feature out entirely.

Yes, we may want to think about deprecating it, especially given
that it is not advertised anywhere.

In any case, the patch looks correct ;-)