Re: [GSoC PATCH v5 1/5] repo: declare the repo command

From: Lucas Seiki Oshiro <lucasseikioshiro@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 23, 2025, 16:28 UTC
Message-ID: <ABD6739A-EBE1-4228-BDAA-600104726808@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqtt34tfna.fsf@gitster.g>

> I also wonder who it helps to use <LF> as a field separator.

Do you mean the <LF> between the field and the value? If so, it was the format suggested by Phillip [1]. I accepted the suggestion because:

1. It's easy to be parsed
2. It's easy to write (then I could drop the json_write stuff)
3. It's already used by an existing command (git-config)

> Once we require consumers to properly handle <NUL>, it does not make
> it easier to write such a consumer script if the format uses <LF>
> there, does it?

Not much... Since the keys contain only letters and dots, any other character would work here, but I wanted to be consistent with something that already exists.

However, to the best of my knowledge, we have several null-terminated commands (git ls-files -z, git status -z, git ls-tree -z, etc), but few commands that use LF as a key-value separator (I only remember git config -z).

> Besides, wouldn't it possible that field may have to contain any
> end-user specified key, including <LF>?

In `repo info`, no. This way, it's safe to parse everything before the first <LF> as the key and everything between <LF> and <NUL> as the value.

The value may contain a <LF>, however, the first <LF> would still be the separator.

Thanks!

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/223c7cbd-610e-49e2-90e2-5914cbc0f1d7@gmail.com/