Re: [Qemu-block] [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 01/10] qemu-img.c: comment typo fix

[Peter Maydell]

On 4 October 2018 at 17:48, Eric Blake <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 10/4/18 11:18 AM, Cleber Rosa wrote:
>>
>> A trivial comment typo fix.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Cleber Rosa <address@hidden>

>> --- a/qemu-img.c
>> +++ b/qemu-img.c
>> @@ -1085,7 +1085,7 @@ static int64_t find_nonzero(const uint8_t *buf,
>> int64_t n)
>>   }
>>     /*
>> - * Returns true iff the first sector pointed to by 'buf' contains at
>> least
>> + * Returns true if the first sector pointed to by 'buf' contains at least
>
>
> NACK.  You're not the first person to propose this change.  However, "iff"
> is an English word (albeit archaic) which is shorthand for "if and only if",
> which has a distinct logical meaning separate from the weaker "if".
> Spelling it out in longhand instead of calling it a typo is probably
> acceptable, though.

Yes; if you happen to have a mathematical background then it's
a familiar abbreviation; but otherwise it isn't, and it's more
confusing than helpful I think. (I don't think it's archaic; it's
just commonly used in university-and-higher-level maths and not
elsewhere.)

 git grep '\Wiff\W'
shows a surprisingly large number of uses. (NB that some of those
are in 3rd-party code, notably the libdecnumber stuff, and should
probably not be changed.)

thanks
-- PMM