[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Pop cost patch (resending via bug system) (PR#897)

[Trent Piepho <xyzzy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 19 Aug 2001, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > 
> > Are you saying the server and client know to skip the pop_cost field if the
> > capability is missing?  Or that they won't be allowed to talk at all?
> 
> Yes if 
> 
[stuff]
> 
> is changed to
> 
[other stuff]

Ok, I thought you meant it it would work without changes and I failed to see
how that was possible.

>    if (pc && has_capability("pop_cost", pc->capability))
>        iget_uint8(&iter, &packet->pop_cost);
>    else
>        packet->pop_cost=0; /* 0 should be a sensible default value */

This is better:

    if (has_capability("pop_cost", pc->capability))
        iget_uint8(&iter, &packet->pop_cost);
    else
        packet->pop_cost=(packet->flags & (1L<<F_CITIES)) ? 1 : 0;



There is no good reason to check pc for NULL either.  If you look, the last
line of the function (and all receive functions) is:

remove_packet_from_buffer(pc->buffer);

So you will get a NULL pointer reference if the function is called with
pc==NULL anyway.  Of course if pc==NULL that means there is a big bug
somewhere.  The check for NULL just confused me, because I couldn't figure out
how the code would ever get run with pc==NULL, and why it wouldn't crash if it
did.  Then I realized that you had just copied that line from elsewhere and
left in the check for no good reason.