Re: human interface change?!? [Re: xstrtol.h

[Bruno Haible]

Hello Jim,

Jim Meyering wrote:
> Please revert those changes.

Reverted. Sorry, I thought the were straightforward and in line with what
you would agree to.

> More importantly, don't you think you should have waited for approval
> from Paul (and discussion on this list) before making an _interface change_
> to the "human" module?  Especially when I already expressed reluctance
> to change that part?

Sorry again; I interpreted your words as hesitation regarding the human.c
part. I thought Paul would speak up within two days. The change was in line
with the i18n issues we discussed. Regarding the interface change, you can
see from Google codesearch
   
http://www.google.com/codesearch?as_q=%5CWhuman_options%5CW&btnG=Code+suchen&hl=de&as_lang=c&as_license_restrict=i&as_license=&as_package=&as_filename=&as_case=
that only coreutils and tar appear to be using this function; I verified
that the newest release of 'tar' doesn't use it.

> My concern is that uses of human may well be in contexts where there is
> *no* option/argument involved.  Hence you've now introduced an artificial
> constraint in making its diagnostic speak of an "argument".

Yes, but I checked all callers.

> As you can see, I disapprove of the human.h change (at least now, since
> I've seen no discussion at all), so also object to your using my name
> in the corresponding ChangeLog entry.

I'm sorry about that as well. I was hesitating whether to put one or two
ChangeLog entries.

> Finally, regarding your proposed coreutils patch, do you really think
> that passing a NULL "option string" into human_options is acceptable?

Since the option string is used only if report_errors = true, yes.

Bruno