Re: [RFC] 'git cat-file' needs a better design on its option interface

From: Li Hong <lihong.hi@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 25, 2009, 02:33 UTC
Message-ID: <3a3680030909241933g5ac48496ic9673030de81898c@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.01.0909241021120.3303@localhost.localdomain>

2009/9/25 Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>:

Show 17 quoted lines

>
>
> On Thu, 24 Sep 2009, Li Hong wrote:
>>
>> When using 'git cat-file' recently, I find its option interface is somewhat
>> inconvenient or mistakenly-designed.
>
> You likely shouldn't use 'cat-file' at all. Have you looked at 'git show'?
> That's the command meant for human beings.
>
> 'git cat-file' is really really low-level plumbing. Humans should
> generally never use it. It's one of the original git commands (it was
> literally in the original git commit), and it does some really low-level
> stuff that is good for scripting but not for any normal use.
>
>                Linus
>

Yes, I know 'git show' and use it mostly. I just think the interface of 'cat-file' is not well designed even used by other scripts or porcelains. But from another respect, it doesn't really annoy normal users much and we should retain backwards compatibility. So I give up.

Thanks for all your feedbacks.

-Li Hong