Re: [PATCH] tag: add tag.createReflog option

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Jan 25, 2017, 18:00 UTC
Message-ID: <20170125180054.7mioop2o6uvqloyt@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20170125001906.13916-1-cornelius.weig@tngtech.com>

On Wed, Jan 25, 2017 at 01:19:06AM +0100, cornelius.weig@tngtech.com wrote:

Show 6 quoted lines

> From: Cornelius Weig <cornelius.weig@tngtech.com>
> 
> Git does not create a history for tags, in contrast to common
> expectation to simply version everything. This can be changed by using
> the `--create-reflog` flag when creating the tag. However, a config
> option to enable this behavior by default is missing.

Hmm, I didn't even know we had "tag --create-reflog". Looks like it was added by 144c76fa39 (update-ref and tag: add --create-reflog arg, 2015-07-21).

IMHO it is a mistake. The "update-ref --create-reflog" variant makes sense to me as a plumbing operation. But are there end users who want to create a reflog for just _one_ tag?

As your patch shows, the more likely variant is "I want reflogs for all tags". But that raises two questions with your patch:

  - yours isn't "reflogs for all tags". It's "reflogs for tags I created
    with git-tag". What about other operations that create tags, like
    fetching (or even just a script that uses update-ref under the
    hood).

    IOW, instead of tag.createReflog, should this be tweaing
    core.logallrefupdates to have a mode that includes tags?

  - Is that the end of it, or is the desire really "I want reflogs for
    _everything_"? That seems like a sane thing to want.

    If so, then the update to core.logallrefupdates should turn it into
    a tri-state:

      - false; no reflogs

      - true; reflogs for branches, remotes, notes, as now

      - always; reflogs for all refs under "refs/"

I made a lot of suppositions about your desires there, so maybe you really do want just tag.createReflog. But "core.logallrefupdates = always" sounds a lot more useful to me.

-Peff