[RFC] Cleaning up die() error messages

[Elfyn McBratney <beu@gentoo.org>]

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Hello git list,

I've started working on cleaning up the various die() error messages
found throughout git, and had a few thoughts along the way.

Currently, I've been adding missing program name prefixes, and quoting path
names (e.g., "%s" -> "'%s'"), but before I go any further, I'm wondering
if this is a) desired, or perhaps b) superfluous?  This may be best
discussed with along-side the patch - which'll follow shortly. ;)

Also, I got to thinking whether it might be an idea to use the following
idiom in the code:

	[shell scripts]
	prog="`basename $0`"
	..
	foo || die "${prog}: foo failed"

	[C sources]
	static char *prog;
	..
	static inline void set_prog_name (char *argv0)
	{
		prog = strrchr(argv0, '/');
		if (prog)
			prog++;
		else
			prog = argv0;
	}
	..
	int main (int argc, char **argv)
	{
		set_prog_name(argv[0]);
		..
		if (!do_bar())
			die("%s: do_bar() failed", prog);
		..
	}

The idea behind this being that, if any of the git programs get renamed
(again :) there won't be a need for s/git-foo/git-bar/g just to fix-up
die() error messages, and it'll also shave a *bit* off of the size of the
compiled binaries. ;)

(Of course, the C parts (`prog' and `set_prog_name()') would go into a
header, and not in every single C source file. ;)

So, any thoughts/comments/flames? :)

Best,
Elfyn

-- 
Elfyn McBratney
Gentoo Developer/Perl Team Lead
beu/irc.freenode.net                            http://dev.gentoo.org/~beu/
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