This merely codifies existing practice, with one exception: the rule
advising against returning void, where existing practice is mixed.
When the Error API was created, we adopted the (unwritten) rule to
return void when the function returns no useful value on success,
unlike GError, which recommends to return true on success and false on
error then.
When a function returns a distinct error value, say false, a checked
call that passes the error up looks like
if (!frobnicate(..., errp)) {
handle the error...
}
When it returns void, we need
Error *err = NULL;
frobnicate(..., &err);
if (err) {
handle the error...
error_propagate(errp, err);
}
Not only is this more verbose, it also creates an Error object even
when @errp is null, &error_abort or &error_fatal.
People got tired of the additional boilerplate, and started to ignore
the unwritten rule. The result is confusion among developers about
the preferred usage.
Make the rule advising against returning void official by putting it
in writing. This will hopefully reduce confusion.
Update the examples accordingly.
The remainder of this series will update a substantial amount of code
to honor the rule.
Signed-off-by: Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>
Reviewed-by: Vladimir Sementsov-Ogievskiy <vsementsov@virtuozzo.com>
Reviewed-by: Greg Kurz <groug@kaod.org>
Message-Id: <20200707160613.848843-4-armbru@redhat.com>
[Tweak prose as per advice from Eric]
e3fe3988d7