Re: [PATCH] git-grep: --and to combine patterns with and instead of or

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Jun 30, 2006, 18:16 UTC
Message-ID: <7v1wt6ik4x.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <e83p0q$dla$1@sea.gmane.org>

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

Show 6 quoted lines

> Because --near needs an expression it check context for (context is for
> found match of lhs expression). So
>
>   -e foo --near \( -e A --or -e B \)
>
> means lines containing foo and either A or B in the context _for "foo"_.

The syntax and semantics of --near I suggested (and you are following) and what Matthias discusses are different and I think that is why you two are talking past each other.

What I originally suggested is that you can (syntactically) replace --near with --and. That is, the LHS is the match and RHS is "the LHS must match, but in addition RHS must match but unlike --and RHS does not have to be exactly on the same line but it is OK if it is a line somewhere nearby".

The --near Matthias talk about is syntactically not like --and but more like --not. It takes a condition for a line after that, and loosens it to cover nearby lines. So "-e A" means "the line must have A on it" but "--near -e A" means "the line must be nearby a line that satisfies `-e A'".

Matthias's "--near EXP" is spelled as "-e '' --near EXP" (the first one is always true) with our syntax, in other words.

I do not think either of these semantics is invalid; they are just different. The version by Matthias is more general and more expressive.