From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2013 11:04:04 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/4] cat-file: add --batch-disk-sizes option
Message-ID: <20130710110402.GD9724@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <7vtxk645vp.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>

On Sun, Jul 07, 2013 at 10:49:46AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> 
> > Perhaps we need
> >
> >   git cat-file --batch-format="%(disk-size) %(object)"
> >
> > or similar.
> 
> I agree with your reasoning.  It may be simpler to give an interface
> to ask for which pieces of info, e.g. --batch-cols=size,disksize,
> without giving the readers a flexible "format".

I started on this, and it turned out not to really be any simpler. In
particular there is the question of whether

  git cat-file --batch-cols=size,type

is different from

  git cat-file --batch-cols=type,size

If so, then you are basically implementing the equivalent of a macro
format anyway (you have to parse it left to right to know the order).
And if not, you end up translating the column list into a bit-field, and
the boilerplate for adding a new item is about the same as for a macro
format.

So I went ahead with the full formats for my re-roll. It turned out
pretty reasonable, I think.

-Peff