Re: Numeric constants as strings

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Andy Parkins <andyparkins@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm working on bringing my hash width literals patch up to
> date now that 1.5.0 has passed.

I do not want to risk discouraging public discussion on this
topic, but I am not sure if this is really worth it.

It is not like if/when we find SHA-1 is inadequate we would just
switch to SHA-256 and redefine HASH_BYTES from 20 to 32 and be
done with it.  With the need for backward compatibility, we
would probably end up changing "unsigned char sha1[20]" to
something that allows us to tell which hash function's result we
are talking about, like:

	struct {
	       	enum { SHA_1, SHA_256 } type;
               	union {
                        unsigned char sha1[20];
                        unsigned char sha256[32];
		} u;
	};