From: Han-Wen Nienhuys <hanwen@google.com>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 14:26:35 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/12] show-ref: introduce mode to check for ref existence
Message-ID: <CAFQ2z_PqNsz+zycSxz=q2cUVOpJS-AEjwHxEM-fiafxd3dxc9g@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqttqf3k5a.fsf@gitster.g>

On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 9:17 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
>
> > this patch series introduces a new `--exists` mode to git-show-ref(1) to
> > explicitly check for the existence of a reference, only.
>
> I agree that show-ref would be the best place for this feature (not
> rev-parse, which is already a kitchen sink).  After all, the command
> was designed for validating refs in 358ddb62 (Add "git show-ref"
> builtin command, 2006-09-15).
>
> Thanks.  Hopefully I can take a look before I go offline.

The series description doesn't say why users would care about this.

If this is just to ease testing, I suggest adding functionality to a
suitable test helper. Anything you add to git-show-ref is a publicly
visible API that needs documentation and comes with a stability
guarantee that is more expensive to maintain than test helper
functionality.

-- 
Han-Wen Nienhuys - Google Munich
I work 80%. Don't expect answers from me on Fridays.
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