libgit2 conventions

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Namespace Prefixes

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All types and functions start with 'git_'.

All #define macros start with 'GIT_'.

Type Definitions

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Most types should be opaque, e.g.:

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typedef struct git_odb git_odb;

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with allocation functions returning an "instance" created within

the library, and not within the application. This allows the type

to grow (or shrink) in size without rebuilding client code.

Public Exported Function Definitions

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All exported functions must be declared as:

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GIT_EXTERN(result_type) git_modulename_functionname(arg_list);

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Semi-Private Exported Functions

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Functions whose modulename is followed by two underscores,

for example 'git_odb__read_packed', are semi-private functions.

They are primarily intended for use within the library itself,

and may disappear or change their signature in a future release.

Calling Conventions

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Functions should prefer to return a 'int' to indicate success or

failure and supply any output through the first argument (or first

few arguments if multiple outputs are supplied).

int status codes are 0 for GIT_OK and < 0 for an error.

This permits common POSIX result testing:

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if (git_odb_open(&odb, path))

abort("odb open failed");

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Functions returning a pointer may return NULL instead of an int

if there is only one type of failure (GIT_ENOMEM).

Functions returning a pointer may also return NULL if the common

case needed by the application is strictly success/failure and a

(possibly slower) function exists that the caller can use to get

more detailed information. Parsing common data structures from

on-disk formats is a good example of this pattern; in general a

"corrupt" entity can be treated as though it does not exist but

a more sophisticated "fsck" support function can report how the

entity is malformed.

Documentation Fomatting

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All comments should conform to Doxygen "javadoc" style conventions

for formatting the public API documentation.

Public Header Format

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All public headers defining types, functions or macros must use

the following form, where ${filename} is the name of the file,

after replacing non-identifier characters with '_'.

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#ifndef INCLUDE_git_${filename}_h__

#define INCLUDE_git_${filename}_h__

#include "git/common.h"

/**

* @file git/${filename}.h

* @brief Git some description

* @defgroup git_${filename} some description routines

* @ingroup Git

* @{

*/

GIT_BEGIN_DECL

... definitions ...

/** @} */

GIT_END_DECL

#endif

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