Re: [Bug] git status -unormal -- 'foo[b]/' won't display content of 'foo[b]/

From: Torsten Bögershausen <tboegi@web.de>
Date: Sep 21, 2014, 19:52 UTC
Message-ID: <541F2C96.6050101@web.de>
In-Reply-To: <87vbogq293.dlv@gmail.com>

On 2014-09-21 20.04, Rémi Vanicat wrote:

Show 34 quoted lines

> Hello,
> 
> I found what look like a bug in git status:
> `git status -unormal foo[b]/` won't output the content of the directory
> foo[b] when `git status -unormal foo/` will output the content of the
> directory foo: 
> 
>   $ mkdir 'foo[b]'
>   $ touch 'foo[b]/bar'
>   $ git status -unormal 'foo[b]/'
>   On branch master
>   Untracked files:
>     (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
> 
>           foo[b]/
> 
>   nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
>   $ mkdir 'foo'
>   $ touch 'foo/bar'
>   $ git status -unormal 'foo/'
>   On branch master
>   Untracked files:
>     (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)
> 
>           foo/bar
> 
>   nothing added to commit but untracked files present (use "git add" to track)
> 
> The documentation of git status contain nothing about treating bracket
> specially. Quoting the brackets do not solve the problem.
> 
> see https://github.com/magit/magit/issues/1512 for discussion about it
> (in the case of git status --porcelain).
>

git status takes a "pathspec" as a parameter, which is not the same as a filename. A pathspec can contain wildcards like '*' or '?' or things like "*[ch]". This is known as shell glob syntax (or so), and used automatically by all shells.

Git allows to use "git add *.[ch]" (where the shell expands the glob) or "git add '*.[ch]'" where Git does the expansion.

You can turn of the glob handling in a pathspec by using this:   
 
GIT_LITERAL_PATHSPECS=1 git status -unormal 'foo[b]/'
On branch master

Initial commit

Untracked files:
  (use "git add <file>..." to include in what will be committed)

        foo[b]/bar
-------------------
Side note:
If somebody feels that the documentation can be better: we appreciate patches.