Re: [PATCH 0/2] [RFD] Using gitrevisions :/search style with other operators

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 10, 2010, 19:03 UTC
Message-ID: <20101210190332.GA6210@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTimg4Cy83gjzgC3fwg+t=B57b6gzOE98p-=2AR+K@mail.gmail.com>

Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Can we use ! modifier for other ^{} too? What I have in mind is how to
> say ^{commit} that has two parents. Or even better, "search from the
> given tip for a commit that has two parents and the commit message
> matches 'foo'". Hmm.. too complex. Perhaps "^{grep: <grep arguments>}"
> that pulls the whole git-grep functionality in.

My thoughts, in no particular order:

 - '!' can be a pain in the neck to supply on the bash command line.
   Single quotes and backslash quoting work while double quotes do
   not, unless 'set +H' has been run.  But that's not a huge deal and
   arguably it's a bash misfeature.

 - What is the intended use for this family of modifiers?  I sort
   of understand ^{:i/... } for people that forget what case they
   have used, but why the :nth and others?

 - Why do we have to carve out the namespace right away, anyway?  If
   we just ^{/... } for the ordinary "start here" search, that leaves
   room for anything after the { other than "/<pattern>" and a few
   fixed strings like "upstream", "tree", etc, right?  It might be
   easier to anticipate what syntax will be useful when there is
   functionality to go with it.