Re: feature request: excluding files/paths from "git grep"

> Trevor Saunders <tbsaunde@tbsaunde.org> writes:
> 
> >> ...  For these "per-invocation" differences, attributes
> >> to declare permenent/inherent nature of the contents is much less
> >> suited than per-invocation inclusion/exclusion mechanism based on
> >> pathspecs, I would think.
> >
> > I think that makes some amount of sense, however typing stuff like
> > --exclude=ChangeLog all the time is not terribly easy on the hands.
> > Would it make sense to instead add a config variable grep.exclude?
> 
> I do not think it makes much more sense for at least three reasons.
> for one thing, It still goes against "per-invocation" nature of what
> is being done.  Your "for this invocation I do not want ChangeLog"
> does not have to be limited to 'grep'.  And also "I end up having to
> give these pathspecs all the time" is not limited to negative ones.

> We have magic pathspecs, like "This pattern is used to match the
> string case-insensitively", "This pattern specifies that the path
> should *not* match it", etc.  How about adding a new feature that
> lets you say "This is a short hand to giving these pathspecs" and
> call that "pathspec macro"?
> 
> If you get tired to keep having to type
> 
>     $ git log -- Documentation/ ':!Documentation/technical/'
> 
> every time you want to check the end-user facing documentation
> pages, you could for example say (I am using a made-up 'macro'
> pathspec magic that is introduced by ':*' followed by a <macro
> name>):
> 
>     $ git log -- ':*userdoc'
> 
> and the same macro specification could be used for all the other
> things that take pathspecs (grep, add, diff, etc.).

> You could then have something like this to define your own "nolog"
> macro:
> 
>     [pathspecMacro]
>         nolog = ':!ChangeLog' ':!ChangeLog.*'
> 
> to shorten your invocation of "grep" by appending it when you want
> to exclude some files, i.e.
> 
>     $ git grep -e pattern -- \*.c ':*nolog'
> 
> and the same pathspec macro can be used in other places, not just
> "grep".  Wouldn't it make more sense?