Re: [PATCH v2 0/3] rev-parse and "--"

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 6, 2013, 23:25 UTC
Message-ID: <20131206232556.GN29959@google.com>
In-Reply-To: <20131206220520.GA30652@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Patch 3 is the revised version of this patch which notices ambiguity.
> However, I'm having second thoughts on it. I think it's the right thing
> to do if you want to help people build something like "git log"
> themselves. But it does mean that we are breaking somebody who does:
>
>   echo foo >HEAD
>   commit=$(git rev-parse HEAD)
>
> I'm tempted to say that people who did that are stupid and wrong (and
> ugly, too). They should probably be using "--verify" in this case. But
> it has been that way for a long time, and there are two instances in our
> test scripts that are broken by the patch.

Wouldn't the same thing happen for $(git rev-parse HEAD^..HEAD) when there is a 'HEAD^..HEAD' file, too? --verify doesn't support that.

I think it's a nice idea to provide this functionality for people who need it, which would mean protected by an option (--check-ambiguity or something). I don't think it's a good change to do it unconditionally.

My two cents, Jonathan