Re: [PATCH] log: new option decorate reflog of remote refs

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jan 20, 2017, 14:30 UTC
Message-ID: <20170120143031.p2mux5uxxzniovkx@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CACsJy8A_LkRMZYfoJuYEUok4r7Tw0VuMwVkG_Kr1o1hFcAUWNw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jan 20, 2017 at 05:55:21PM +0700, Duy Nguyen wrote:

Show 25 quoted lines

> > We already have very flexible ref-selectors like --remotes, --branches,
> > etc. The generalization of this would perhaps be something like:
> >
> >   git log --decorate-reflog --remotes --branches
> >
> > where "--decorate-reflog" applies to the next ref selector and then is
> > reset, the same way --exclude is. And it includes those refs _only_ for
> > decoration, not for traversal. So you could do:
> >
> >   git log --decorate-reflog --remotes --remotes
> >
> > if you wanted to see use those as traversal roots, too (if this is
> > common, it might even merit another option for "decorate and show").
> >
> > That's just off the top of my head, so maybe there are issues. I was
> > just surprised to see the "-remote" part in your option name.
> 
> Imposing order between options could cause confusion, I think, if you
> remove --decorate-reflog leaving --remotes on by accident, now you get
> --remotes with a new meaning. We could go with something like
> --decodate-reflog=remote, but that clashes with the number of reflog
> entries and we may need a separator, like --decorate-reflog=remote,3.
> Or we could add something to --decorate= in addition to
> short|full|auto|no. Something like --decorate=full,reflog or
> --decorate=full,reflog=remote,entries=3 if I want 3 reflog entries.

I agree that making option-order important is potentially confusing. But it does already exist with --exclude. It's necessary to specify some sets of refs (e.g., all of A, except for those that match B, and then all of C, including those that match B).

Having --decorate-reflog=remote would be similarly constrained. You couldn't do "decorate all remotes except for these ones". For that matter, I'm not sure how you would do "decorate just the refs from origin".

I'll grant that those are going to be a lot less common than just "all the remotes" (or all the tags, or whatever). I'd just hate to see us revisiting this in a year to generalize it, and being stuck with historical baggage.

> My hesitant to go that far is because I suspect decorating reflog
> won't be helpful for non-remotes. But I'm willing to make more changes
> if it opens door to master.

Forgetting reflogs for a moment, I'd actually find it useful to just decorate tags and local branches, but not remotes. But right now there isn't any way to select which refs are worthy of decoration (reflog or not).

That's why I'm thinking so much about a general ref-selection system. I agree the "--exclude=... --remotes" thing is complicated, but it's also the ref-selection system we _already_ have, which to me is a slight point in its favor.

-Peff