[REVIEW] Drop extra copy in get_last_error_text

[jakirkham]

In get_last_error_text, the assignment of const char* to bytes results in a copy as bytes must own its memory. After that the bytes object is decoded to a Python str. However it is possible to decode directly from const char* to str avoiding the copy to the temporary bytes object. Hence this code makes that change.

Further Python and Cython def functions always return None if nothing else is returned. Hence the logic can be simplified here to only focus on returning the error text.

[coderabbitai]

📝 Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Refactor of get_last_error_text in the exceptions module: the function now decodes and returns the C error string directly when c_err is non-NULL; the previous explicit NULL early-return was removed so the function falls through when c_err is NULL.

Changes

Cohort / File(s)	Summary
Exception Error Handling python/cuvs/cuvs/common/exceptions.pyx	get_last_error_text simplified to decode and return the C error text directly from c_err when non-NULL; removed intermediate bytes variable and the explicit NULL early-return (function now falls through on NULL).

Estimated code review effort

🎯 3 (Moderate) | ⏱️ ~20 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Description check	✅ Passed	The pull request description clearly explains the optimization: eliminating an unnecessary copy by decoding directly from const char* to str, and simplifying control flow by relying on implicit None returns.
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: dropping an unnecessary intermediate bytes variable copy in the get_last_error_text function, which aligns with the core optimization objective.

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✨ Finishing Touches

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests

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[jakirkham]

Some CI jobs were seeing GitHub API timeouts (for example). So needed to restart CI

[aamijar]

LGTM!