Re: [PATCH] Support ent:relative_path

From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: May 4, 2007, 17:17 UTC
Message-ID: <7vabwktsng.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <463AFAAE.853DEF7B@eudaptics.com>

Johannes Sixt <J.Sixt@eudaptics.com> writes:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Alex Riesen wrote:
>> On 5/4/07, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:
>> > My preference is (2), (3) and then (1), but I do not have
>> > offhand a suggestion for a good metacharacter we could use.
>> 
>> "./" :)
>
> +1, without the :)
> and ../ should DWIM, too.

I think these feel more or less natural (except that we do not say ":/fullpath" and instead say ":fullpath" which is unfortunate).

In the hindsight, if we had the perfect vision into the future, we would have made <path> relative to where you are when we initially did "<something>:<path>", with obvious semantics for things like "<something>:../<path>" and "<something>:/<path>".

We didn't. Further, we made a mistake to make :/ to mean something completely unrelated. My bad.

So I think "./" is the best compromise in the meantime.

With your suggestion, we can train people's fingers to type "./" now, and perhaps later in one of those big feature release like the 1.5.0 was, we could switch to "default to relative".

At the same time of that big "UI correction", we could make "<something>:/<path>" to mean "full path in commit (or index/stage) no matter where I am".

The current ":/<string>" is about going back, looking for the string, so it should not have used '/'; instead it should have been "<something>:?<string>". Maybe we could fix it by start accepting ":?" now (in addition to ":/"), give a big fat warning about ":/" going to mean a different thing, and encouraging users to use the question-mark form, in preparation for the big "UI correction".

Do people like that plan?

(soon after 1.5.2)

 - start accepting "<something>:./<path>" as "relative to where I am".

 - start accepting "<something>:?<string>" as "look back to find
   the string".

 - clearly explain the plan and prepare the users.

(a big release in the future, perhaps 1.6.0)

 - "<something>:<path>" becomes relative to where you are.
 - stop "<something>:/<string>" and start "<something>:/<fullpath>".