From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2020 09:24:14 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 1/1] config: learn the --stdin option for instructions
Message-ID: <20200128092414.GB574544@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAPig+cS03oS9PhN_cusjpzoCzwNmgc5rXiVAmG3ceUCFw71PVg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jan 27, 2020 at 11:59:03AM -0500, Eric Sunshine wrote:

> Second, this doesn't give any indication about how the lines should be
> terminated. It should instead be written as:
> 
>     set SP <key> NUL <value> NUL
>     unset SP <key> NUL
> 
> Third, importantly, unlike git-update-ref from which this DSL takes
> inspiration and in which "refs" might have oddball names for which
> NUL-termination makes sense, it's hard to imagine a case in which a
> configuration key would be so strange as to warrant NUL-termination.
> This observation suggests a simpler DSL in which only <value> is
> NUL-terminated:
> 
>     set SP <key> SP <value> NUL
>     unset SP <key> LF
> 
> (The proposed code changes in config.c would need adjustment, as well,
> to implement this revised DSL.)

The section and key parts of a config key are pretty restricted, but the
subsection portion can contain anything except newline and NUL. So in
particular, it would be valid to have a space, which would make the
input ambiguous.

I agree it would probably be rare, but isn't the whole point of "-z" to
be able to represent anything without worrying about quoting?

-Peff