Re: [PATCH 1/2] status: really ignore config with --porcelain

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 24, 2013, 17:16 UTC
Message-ID: <7v1u7rbf9v.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <vpq7ghjtpv1.fsf@anie.imag.fr>

Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@grenoble-inp.fr> writes:

> Scripts that want the branch information can use --branch.
> Scripts that do not have absolutely nothing to gain in getting this
> extra output (only extra parser complexity).

OK, I could buy that.

I personally have always _assumed_ that the way the "--porcelain" output was meant to evolve was to make sure scripts are robust to ignore what it does not care about, so that we allow people to add more types of information without breaking the syntax, but script writers have been assuming otherwise and there is no clearly written rule in the documentation, so it is too late to enforce it now.

That means after we add more and more other options like --branch that enrich the output in several years, scripts that want to use the enriched data need to pass tons of options to get what they want, which is not very nice, but at least it won't break the status quo, and "ask for only what you use" is a good principle for scripts anyway.

Thanks for a sanity check.