Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2 03/16] sockets: allow port to be NULL when listening on IP address

[Peter Maydell]

On 22 October 2015 at 10:43, Daniel P. Berrange <address@hidden> wrote:
> For reasons I don't understand, it appears that even string
> fields which are marked as optional get a 'has_XXX' flag,
> to distinguish betweeen a NULL string and an unset string.
> I struggle to imagine why we need this. It makes sense for
> integer/boolean types, but I would have thought just checking
> for NULL was sufficient for string types.

I think the argument here is pure consistency. *Every* optional
field should be implemented as has_fieldname (bool) plus fieldname
(actual value). Special casing string types because we happen
to have a special value we can use to indicate 'no string'
seems to me like it would cause more confusion than it would
be worth.

thanks
-- PMM