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Re: [PATCH] specifying ranges: we did not mean to make ".." an empty set

From
Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch>
Date
Aug 23, 2012, 11:56 UTC
Message-ID
<874nntq0sb.fsf@thomas.inf.ethz.ch>
In-Reply-To
<20120823082916.GA6963@sigill.intra.peff.net>
Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
Show 27 quoted lines
> On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 03:59:43PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> Either end of revision range operator can be omitted to default to HEAD,
>> as in "origin.." (what did I do since I forked) or "..origin" (what did
>> they do since I forked).  But the current parser interprets ".."  as an
>> empty range "HEAD..HEAD", and worse yet, because ".." does exist on the
>> filesystem, we get this annoying output:
>> 
>>   $ cd Documentation/howto
>>   $ git log .. ;# give me recent commits that touch Documentation/ area.
>>   fatal: ambiguous argument '..': both revision and filename
>>   Use '--' to separate filenames from revisions
>> 
>> Surely we could say "git log ../" or even "git log -- .." to disambiguate,
>> but we shouldn't have to.
>> 
>> Helped-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
>> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
>
> Hmm, for some reason I had no recollection of the original thread at
> all. And yet reading the archives, I apparently had quite a bit to say.
> Reading again with fresh eyes, I still think this is sane.
>
> I don't think assigning any revision magic to ".." besides "the empty
> range" makes sense at all for the reasons you gave in the original
> thread. And the empty range is a pointless no-op. So I don't see any
> real argument in favor of disambiguating towards the revision.

I don't think that ".." is really a no-op. It is true that HEAD..HEAD does not itself result in any revisions, but it *could* be used as a silly shorthand to introduce ^HEAD into the objects being walked. This can make a difference if it then excludes other objects, too.

I would argue that such use is misguided, and I am in favor of the patch, but in theory it is possible.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch
Previous: Jeff KingNext: Junio C Hamano
Message 3 of 6 in “specifying ranges: we did not mean to make ".." an empty set”
  1. specifying ranges: we did not mean to make ".." an empty setJunio C Hamano, Aug 22, 2012
  2. Jeff KingAug 23, 2012
  3. Thomas RastAug 23, 2012
  4. Junio C HamanoAug 23, 2012
  5. Junio C HamanoAug 23, 2012
  6. Jeff KingAug 23, 2012

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