Re: Tilde spec - befuzzled
- From
Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se>
- Date
- Feb 28, 2012, 09:50 UTC
- Message-ID
- <4F4CA354.2070503@op5.se>
- In-Reply-To
- <4F4C995D.9000504@diamand.org>
On 02/28/2012 10:07 AM, Luke Diamand wrote:
Show 15 quoted lines
> The documentation for caret and tilde specs is making my head hurt, even though they always _do_ exactly what I want. And I thought I understood them until I read more carefully.
>
> A suffix '{caret}' to a revision parameter means the first parent of
> that commit object. '{caret}<n>' means the <n>th parent (i.e.
> '<rev>{caret}'
>
> So far, so good.
>
> '<rev>{tilde}<n>', e.g. 'master{tilde}3'::
> A suffix '{tilde}<n>' to a revision parameter means the commit
> object that is the <n>th generation grand-parent of the named
> commit object, following only the first parents.
>
> Hang on, *grand*-parents?
> Replace "grand-parent" with "ancestor" and your head might hurt a little less. Caret only ever describes parent, while tilde can describe either parent or n'th generation grand-parent. Since parent and grand-parent are all ancestors, that would be a better term.
I believe this stems from the fact that most git-gurus use a single caret to specify 'parent' and only go to the tilde when they want grandparents. It might be because caret was implemented first, or because of english keyboard layout. On swedish keyboards, using tilde is far more convenient than using caret, so that's what I mostly use when I want the parent of a single-parent commit (it requires only one hand and no thumb-acrobatics even on my laptop).
-- Andreas Ericsson andreas.ericsson@op5.se OP5 AB www.op5.se Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231 Considering the successes of the wars on alcohol, poverty, drugs and terror, I think we should give some serious thought to declaring war on peace.