Re: [PATCH 1/2] alternates: accept double-quoted paths

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Dec 13, 2016, 11:52 UTC
Message-ID: <20161213115218.7arxxatus7qjdu2m@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CACsJy8B52ZDRTUjGLqub_1wELtugv99xbDnBg1PX1LUTb6nVMQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 06:30:15PM +0700, Duy Nguyen wrote:

Show 18 quoted lines

> On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 2:52 AM, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
> > Instead, let's treat names as unquoted unless they begin
> > with a double-quote, in which case they are interpreted via
> > our usual C-stylke quoting rules. This also breaks
> > backwards-compatibility, but in a smaller way: it only
> > matters if your file has a double-quote as the very _first_
> > character in the path (whereas an escape character is a
> > problem anywhere in the path).  It's also consistent with
> > many other parts of git, which accept either a bare pathname
> > or a double-quoted one, and the sender can choose to quote
> > or not as required.
> 
> At least attr has the same problem and is going the same direction
> [1]. Cool. (I actually thought the patch was in and evidence that this
> kind of backward compatibility breaking was ok, turns out the patch
> has stayed around for years)
> 
> [1] http://public-inbox.org/git/%3C20161110203428.30512-18-sbeller@google.com%3E/

Thanks for digging that up. As soon as I came up with the idea[1], I wanted to use the attr code as an example of a similar problem and solution, but I couldn't find it in the code. Which makes sense if it wasn't merged.

I do think it's a pretty reasonable approach in general, and would be OK for the attributes code.

-Peff

[1] One could argue that I did not come up with the idea at all, but
    rather just remembered that somebody else had done so. :)