Re: git status --porcelain is a mess that needs fixing

>>> may contain spaces (and will be quoted in that case, and you need to
>>> unmangle). You should use "-z".
>>>
>>> You will probably then realize that the "-z" format looks like:
>>>
>>>   XY file1\0file2\0
>>>
>>> which still sucks. It would be more friendly as:
>>>
>>>   XY\0file1\0file2\0
>>>
>>> So you could split on "\0". But even with that, you can't just blindly
>>> split, as the column and record separators are the same, and you might
>>> have one or two filenames.
>>
>> Not true.  If the second form was used, then you _can_ split on \0.  It
>> will tokenise the data for you, and then you consume ether two or three
>> tokens depending on the status flags.  So it would make the parsing
>> simpler.  But to make it even easier, how about adding a -Z that makes
>> the
>> output format "XY\0file1\0[file2]\0" (i.e. always three tokens per
>> record,
>> with the third token being empty if there is no second filename)?
>>  Though
>> if future expandability was wanted you could end each record with \0\0
>> and
>> then parsing would be a two stages of split on \0\0 for records and

>> split on \0 for entries?
> 
> Surely that won't work - if file2 can be empty, \0[file2]\0 reduces to
> \0\0 which would be confused with the \0\0 proposed as a record
> separator.