Re: [PATCH v3 01/10] wildmatch: fix "**" special case

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jan 24, 2013, 04:49 UTC
Message-ID: <7vwqv3dw2n.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <CACsJy8DiVy7tcG_t2JENKoPSFWV24Tneh4q=upPPJML4VESMag@mail.gmail.com>

Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:

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> If we do that, we need to do the same in tree_entry_interesting(). In
> other words, pathspec learns the new glob syntax. It's fine for an
> experimental flag like USE_WILDMATCH. But after fnmatch is replaced by
> wildmatch unconditionally (thus USE_WILDMATCH becomes obsolete), then
> what? Should people who expects new syntax with USE_WILDMATCH continue
> to have new syntax? How does a user know which syntax may be used in
> his friend's "git" binary?

Good point.

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> On a related subject, I've been meaning to write a mail about the
> other use of patterns in git (e.g. in git-branch, git-tag,
> git-apply...) but never got around to. Some use without FNM_PATHNAME,
> some do and the document does not go into details about the
> differences. We might want to unify the syntax there too. It'll
> probably break backward compatibility so we can do the same when we
> switch pathspec syntax.

Right now, I think for-each-ref is the only one with FNM_PATHNAME. With the experimental USE_WILDMATCH, "for-each-ref refs/**/master" will give us what is naturally expected. With a working wildmatch, I think it probably makes sense to globally enable FNM_PATHNAME; it would probably be nice if we could do so at Git 2.0 version bump boundary, but I suspect we are not ready yet (as you pointed out, there are still codepaths that need to be adjusted).

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> The only problem I see is, without the version string, there's no way
> to know if "**" is supported. Old git versions will happily take "**"
> and interpret as "*". When you advise someone to use "**" you might
> need to add "check if you have this version of git". This problem does
> not exist with pathspec magic like :(glob)

OK, so what do we want to do when we do the real "USE_WILDMATCH" that is not the current experimental curiosity? Use ":(wild)" or something?