From: Eric Raymond <esr@thyrsus.com>
Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:50:29 GMT
Subject: Re: More git status --porcelain lossage
Message-ID: <20100409195029.GA15810@thyrsus.com>
In-Reply-To: <m3ochsh1oc.fsf@localhost.localdomain>

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>:
> > Conclusion: As it is presently, git status --porcelain format is
> > irretrievably botched.  You need a field separator that's musch less
> > likely to land in a filename, like '|' - and to warn in the documentation
> > that careful front ends must check for and ignore '\|'. 
> 
> Or follow what other porcelain does, like git-diff-tree raw output
> format, where all fields except final filename are space separated,
> filename is separated by tab character (or NUL when '-z' options is
> used).  If there are two names (in the case of copy or renames),
> they are separated by a tab (or NUL).  Record ends with LF (or NUL).
> 
> When '-z' option is not used, TAB, LF, " and backslash characters
> are represented by '\t', '\n', '\"' and \\, and the filename is
> enclosed in '"' doublequotes.

That would be a bit trickier to parse, but acceptable.
-- 
		<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>