Re: git-grep: option parsing conflicts with prefix-dash searches

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 5, 2010, 23:34 UTC
Message-ID: <7v7hqrs1d0.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LSU.2.01.1002060009430.30204@obet.zrqbmnf.qr>

Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@medozas.de> writes:

Show 13 quoted lines

> On Saturday 2010-02-06 00:09, Jan Engelhardt wrote:
>
>>What works is (3).
>>
>>(3)	$ git grep -- -- '->cnt' net/ipv4/netfilter/
>
> No, I spoke too soon. This command will search for --, not ->cnt.
> So git cannot search for patterns starting with a dash at all,
> as I see it. This is getting fun..
>
>>As I said, it's a mess. And I know not whether any code can convince
>>the "but we need to watch compatibility"-sayers, because this would
>>definitely be a flag change.

I guess our mails crossed. You don't have to worry about "flag change", as I don't think there is any change necessary.

You just need to learn:

 (1) "-e" can come before a string to tell git: "this might look like
     an option to you but it isn't; it is what I am looking for"; and

 (2) Everything that follows "--" are pathspecs, not revs nor options.

And all is well.