Re: [BUG] git symbolic-ref does not recognize @ as the shortcut for HEAD

From: Duy Nguyen <pclouds@gmail.com>
Date: Jan 15, 2014, 11:26 UTC
Message-ID: <CACsJy8Dy5xgF5m6BOo1cfdzg5dOx58sZo0aa_YKdnyAvJ6g4=Q@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAOBEgJjmoXEDVa4L5LbAGMYR7_+NCf2tDSveieZxtU4bfWyzDw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 10:05 PM, Mathieu Lemoine <mathieu@mlemoine.name> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Hello,
>
> In https://raw.github.com/git/git/master/Documentation/RelNotes/1.8.5.txt
> is mentioned:
>
>  * Instead of typing four capital letters "HEAD", you can say "@" now,
> e.g. "git log @".
>
> However, `git symbolic-ref @`  gives "fatal: No such ref: @", while
> `git symbolic-ref @`  gives "refs/heads/master".

you meant "while `git symbolic-ref _HEAD_` gives refs/heads/master"?

Show 5 quoted lines

> I looked around in the archive and #git, but nobody seemed to be aware
> of the behaviour.
>
> I wonder if it's on purpose given the low level of symbolic-ref or if
> it's a bug.

I think this is because symbolic-ref (and show-ref) takes plain refs, either in full or short form, but nothing else fancier. I'm not sure if we should add support for @ (and maybe @{u} as it's in the same boat) to these commands. If it's confusing and hard to explain in documents then maybe we should.

-- 
Duy