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Re: Missing ? wildcard character in gitignore documentation

From
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com>
Date
Jan 30, 2018, 11:07 UTC
Message-ID
<871si7ob9z.fsf@evledraar.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To
<20180130101351.GA761@ash>
On Tue, Jan 30 2018, Duy Nguyen jotted:
Show 54 quoted lines
> On Mon, Jan 29, 2018 at 10:47:10AM -0500, Randall S. Becker wrote:
>> The implication of support for ? is there through the following paragraph from the gitignore documentation:
>>
>>     "Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable for
>>     consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag: wildcards
>>     in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname. For example,
>>     "Documentation/*.html" matches "Documentation/git.html" but not
>>     "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html" or
>>     "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html"."
>>
>> Of course you have to go read fnmatch(3), so it might be good for
>> expand on this here :).
>
> I agree. How about something like this?
>
> -- 8< --
> Subject: [PATCH] gitignore.txt: elaborate shell glob syntax
>
> `fnmatch(3)` is a great mention if the intended audience is
> programmers. For normal users it's probably better to spell out what
> a shell glob is.
>
> This paragraph is updated to roughly tell (or remind) what the main
> wildcards are supposed to do. All the details are still hidden away
> behind the `fnmatch(3)` wall because bringing the whole specification
> here may be too much.
>
> Signed-off-by: Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>
> ---
>  Documentation/gitignore.txt | 11 +++++------
>  1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 6 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/gitignore.txt b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> index 63260f0056..0f4b1360bd 100644
> --- a/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/gitignore.txt
> @@ -102,12 +102,11 @@ PATTERN FORMAT
>     (relative to the toplevel of the work tree if not from a
>     `.gitignore` file).
>
> - - Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob suitable
> -   for consumption by fnmatch(3) with the FNM_PATHNAME flag:
> -   wildcards in the pattern will not match a / in the pathname.
> -   For example, "Documentation/{asterisk}.html" matches
> -   "Documentation/git.html" but not "Documentation/ppc/ppc.html"
> -   or "tools/perf/Documentation/perf.html".
> + - Otherwise, Git treats the pattern as a shell glob: '{asterisk}'
> +   matches anything except '/', '?' matches any one character except
> +   '/' and '[]' matches one character in a selected range. See
> +   fnmatch(3) and the FNM_PATHNAME flag for a more accurate
> +   description.
>
>   - A leading slash matches the beginning of the pathname.
>     For example, "/{asterisk}.c" matches "cat-file.c" but not

When reading the docs the other day I was thinking that we should entirely git rid of these references to fnmatch(3) and write a gitwildmatch man page.

One of the reasons for why fnmatch() was removed as a supported backend was because it couldn't be relied on as a backend, so it doesn't make sense to be referring to that OS-level documentation, wildmatch also has other features.

Previous: Duy NguyenNext: Duy Nguyen
Message 5 of 6 in “Missing ? wildcard character in gitignore documentation”
  1. Jack FJan 29, 2018
  2. Randall S. BeckerJan 29, 2018
  3. Jack FJan 29, 2018
  4. Duy NguyenJan 30, 2018
  5. Ævar Arnfjörð BjarmasonJan 30, 2018
  6. Duy NguyenJan 30, 2018

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