refactor skip_prefix to return a boolean

The skip_prefix() function returns a pointer to the content
past the prefix, or NULL if the prefix was not found. While
this is nice and simple, in practice it makes it hard to use
for two reasons:

  1. When you want to conditionally skip or keep the string
     as-is, you have to introduce a temporary variable.
     For example:

       tmp = skip_prefix(buf, "foo");
       if (tmp)
	       buf = tmp;

  2. It is verbose to check the outcome in a conditional, as
     you need extra parentheses to silence compiler
     warnings. For example:

       if ((cp = skip_prefix(buf, "foo"))
	       /* do something with cp */

Both of these make it harder to use for long if-chains, and
we tend to use starts_with() instead. However, the first line
of "do something" is often to then skip forward in buf past
the prefix, either using a magic constant or with an extra
strlen(3) (which is generally computed at compile time, but
means we are repeating ourselves).

This patch refactors skip_prefix() to return a simple boolean,
and to provide the pointer value as an out-parameter. If the
prefix is not found, the out-parameter is untouched. This
lets you write:

  if (skip_prefix(arg, "foo ", &arg))
	  do_foo(arg);
  else if (skip_prefix(arg, "bar ", &arg))
	  do_bar(arg);

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 2 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/branch.c b/branch.c
index 660097bc29..46e8aa86df 100644
--- a/branch.c
+++ b/branch.c
@@ -50,11 +50,11 @@ static int should_setup_rebase(const char *origin)
 
 void install_branch_config(int flag, const char *local, const char *origin, const char *remote)
 {
-	const char *shortname = skip_prefix(remote, "refs/heads/");
+	const char *shortname = NULL;
 	struct strbuf key = STRBUF_INIT;
 	int rebasing = should_setup_rebase(origin);
 
-	if (shortname
+	if (skip_prefix(remote, "refs/heads/", &shortname)
 	    && !strcmp(local, shortname)
 	    && !origin) {
 		warning(_("Not setting branch %s as its own upstream."),