Re: [PATCH 2/2] Add support for url aliases in config files

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 20, 2008, 19:42 UTC
Message-ID: <7vskzn4dpz.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LNX.1.00.0802201418590.19024@iabervon.org>

Daniel Barkalow <barkalow@iabervon.org> writes:

Show 15 quoted lines

> On Wed, 20 Feb 2008, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> ...
>> To me, "url.$this_is_what_I_use.aka = $how_they_might_call_it"
>> initially felt backwards, but the point of the facility is to
>> allow mapping many ways other people might call it to how you
>> would (and the other way would not make sense as allowing to map
>> one thing to multiple is only to introduce unnecessary
>> ambiguity), so it makes perfect sense.
>
> This order of values is definitely the right thing, for the mapping 
> reasons you saw. And I think "aka" is generally used to indicate 
> additional non-canonical names for something with an official name (see, 
> for example, IMDB's usage). I haven't been able to come up with anything 
> better to indicate "this is a name that I will recognize but not use 
> myself".

Yeah, that "aka" is still disturbing.

	[url A]
        	aka = B

would read to me: "A is also known as B" but that is clearly not what it means here. You would want this:

	[url A]
        	aka = B 
		aka = C

to mean "B is also known as A. C is also known as A." IOW, you are using it backwards, because their name is more official and you are using your own unofficial name to call it.

Sorry, but I cannot think of a better way to resolve this, other than by spelling the keyword backwards, but that still makes it "aka".

Show 21 quoted lines

>> > diff --git a/Documentation/urls.txt b/Documentation/urls.txt
>> > index 81ac17f..0115af7 100644
>> > --- a/Documentation/urls.txt
>> > +++ b/Documentation/urls.txt
>> > @@ -44,3 +44,26 @@ endif::git-clone[]
>> > ...
>> > +If you have a section:
>> > +
>> > +------------
>> > +	[host "git://git.host.xz/"]
>> > +		aka = host.xz:/path/to/
>> > +		aka = work:
>> > +------------
>> > +
>> > +a URL like "work:repo.git" or like "host.xz:/path/to/repo.git" will be
>> > +rewritten in any context that takes a URL to be
>> > +"git://git.host.xz/repo.git".
>> 
>> This still stands???
>
> And missed the "host"->"url" bit while I fixed the rest of the example.

So this part is not wanted, right?

> Want a replacement, or can you make the obvious corrections just as 
> easily yourself?

If my above rant about "aka" is not a total misunderstanding, I'd rather see somebody (could be you, or others on the list) to come up with a better keyword and have a replacement patch based on it.