Re: [ANNOUNCE] Git 1.7.10-rc0

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 8, 2012, 06:53 UTC
Message-ID: <20120308065306.GA8799@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vk42vfv3c.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Wed, Mar 07, 2012 at 10:46:47PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> >   * "git log -G" and "git log -S" learned to pay attention to the "-i"
> >     option. When "-i" is given, their patterns will match
> >     case-insensitively.
> 
> I was torn about this item, and indeed my earlier draft read like
> yours but I removed "-S" as it felt it was more confusing than it
> was worth.  The thing is that -S does not take any pattern --- it is
> meant to be given a (typically a multi-line) block of text to find
> where the exact block cease to exist in the file.

Yeah, though I think many people do treat it as a fixed-string pattern (I typically use "git log -Sfoo" to search for "foo", though perhaps that is because I trained my fingers long before "-G" existed. "-S" is also a lot faster).

My initial reaction to your statement was "well, if we can't justify it in the release notes, then perhaps it is wrong for -S to be respecting -i". But I don't think that is right. The code is doing the right thing, and it is merely that "-S" is a little-used and often-misunderstood tool, and you would naturally want to avoid mentioning it to avoid complicating the notes and confusing the reader.

Show 6 quoted lines

>  * "git log -G" and "git log -S" learned to pay attention to the "-i"
>    option.  With "-i", "log -G" finds patch hunks that introduce or
>    remove a string that matches the given pattern ignoring the case.
>    Similarly with "-i", "log -S" finds where the given block of text
>    appears or disappears from the file, but this comparison is done
>    case-insensitively.

I think that's much better.

Though as a minor nit, the thing I had trouble parsing originally was "...that matches the given pattern ignoring the case". I think "...ignores the case when finding patch hunks that introduce..." is a little easier to read.

-Peff