On Fri, Sep 01, 2023 at 08:38:26PM +0200, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> On date Friday 2023-09-01 18:54:40 +0200, Michael Niedermayer wrote:
> > On Thu, Aug 31, 2023 at 07:16:20PM +0200, Stefano Sabatini wrote:
> [...]
> > > +/**
> > > + * Compute and return a normalized Gaussian vector.
> > > + *
> > > + * @param vecp: pointer where the computed vector is put in case of
> > > + *        success
> > > + * @param standard_deviation the standard deviation used to generate
> > > + *        the Gaussian vector, must be a non-negative value
> > > + * @param quality the quality of the generated Gaussian vector, must
> > > + *        be a non-negative value. It affects the lenght of the generated
> > > + *        vector. A value equal to 3 corresponds to high quality.
> > > + * @param log_ctx a pointer to an arbitrary struct of which the first
> > > + *        field is a pointer to an AVClass struct (used for av_log)
> > > + *        used for logging, can be NULL
> > > + *
> > > + * @return a negative error code on error, non negative otherwise
> > > + */
> > > +int sws_get_gaussian_vec(SwsVector **vecp,
> > > +                         double standard_deviation, double quality,
> > > +                         void *log_ctx);
> > 
> > which of the two do you consider better?
> > 
> > First, here the central part we return is the vector
> > 
> > SwsVector *gaus_vec = sws_getGaussianVec(NULL, 1, 2);
> > SwsVector *temp_vec = sws_ConvolveVec(NULL, in_vec, gaus_vec);
> > sws_averageVec(temp_vec, temp_vec, in_vec);
> > 
> > av_free(gaus_vec);
> > return temp_vec; // Error checking here happens by temp_vec being NULL in all cases of error
> > 
> > vs.
> > 
> > Second, here the central part we return is the error code
> > 
> > SwsVector *gaus_vec = NULL;
> > SwsVector *temp_vec = NULL;
> > int err = sws_getGaussianVec(&gaus_vec, 1, 2);
> > if (err<0)
> >     goto fail;
> > 
> > err = sws_ConvolveVec(&temp_vec, in_vec, gaus_vec);
> > if (err<0)
> >     goto fail;
> > 
> > err = sws_averageVec(&temp_vec, temp_vec, in_vec);
> > if (err<0)
> >     goto fail;
> 
> The latter pattern enables differentiation between error codes (ENOMEM
> or EINVAL) and provides feedback in the log message. With the former
> you only know if it fails, but you don't know why (relevant in case
> e.g. we make the parameter tunable by a filter and we don't want to
> add additional validation and logging at the filter level).

can the API be designed so that optionally the user could choose to
only check the error code after several steps ?
(this would avoid the need for 1 check per call where the fine grained
 information is not needed)
I mean similar to the concept of NAN in floating point so that a failure
can be propagated and only at the end checked.

thx

[...]
-- 
Michael     GnuPG fingerprint: 9FF2128B147EF6730BADF133611EC787040B0FAB

"You are 36 times more likely to die in a bathtub than at the hands of a
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