'git stash list' vs. non-default 'log.date' setting

From: SZEDER Gábor <szeder@ira.uka.de>
Date: Aug 9, 2010, 10:40 UTC
Message-ID: <20100809104056.GJ4612@neumann>

Hi,

Commits 8f8f547 (Introduce new pretty formats %g[sdD] for reflog information, 2009-10-19) and 391c53b (stash list: use new %g formats instead of sed, 2009-10-19) (Thomas on Cc:) changed the way how the output of 'git stash list' is generated. I agree that avoiding a sed invocation and respecting pager settings are good things (although I also think that if you have so many stashes that you need a pager, then you are doing something wrong).

However, these changes have some side-effects:

1) The output of 'git stash list' is affected by the 'log.date' config
   variable:

   $ git config --get log.date
   $ git stash list
   stash@{0}: On master: foo
   $ git config log.date iso8601
   $ git stash list
   stash@{2010-08-03 16:54:34 +0200}: On master: foo

   I would expect that stashes are always listed as stash@{num}, no
   matter what I have in 'log.date' (just like 'git reflog').  It
   takes up less screen space and is easier to remember.

2) The bash completion script expects that, too, because a non-default
   value for 'log.date' breaks the completion of 'git stash'
   subcommands with a stash argument:

   $ git stash apply <TAB>
   16                  stash@{2010-08-03

Fortunately, fixing 2) is a no-brainer:

diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index 6756990..e3600d4 100755
--- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
@@ -2167,7 +2167,7 @@ _git_stash ()
 			COMPREPLY=()
 			;;
 		show,*|apply,*|drop,*|pop,*|branch,*)
-			__gitcomp "$(git --git-dir="$(__gitdir)" stash list \
+			__gitcomp "$(git --git-dir="$(__gitdir)" stash list --date=default \
 					| sed -n -e 's/:.*//p')"
 			;;
 		*)

But what to do with 1)?  Of course, I would hate to use --date=default
by 'git stash list' invocations, and, (again) of course, I don't want
to change my 'log.date' setting either.  Maybe changing the %gd (and
%gD) format specifiers to ignore 'log.date' altogether but still
respect --date=<whatever>?


Best,
Gábor