for-each-ref output order change in 2.7.0

In one of our tests, we have a set of branches whose names are all special characters (%, @, etc). Most of them branches have identical tip commits and just have different names. In 2.7.0, when ordering by -committerdate, the branches are now returned in a different order. I don't think this is a bug, based on the commit it bisects to, but I'm wondering if someone can confirm.

2.6.5 and prior (tested all the way back to 1.7.6, so this was consistent for a long time):

refs/heads/!@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:04:06 2012 +1100 refs/heads/!@#$% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#$% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100

2.7.0:

refs/heads/!@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:04:06 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#$% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/!@#$% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100

I've bisected this back to:

bturner@ubuntu:~/Development/oss/git/git$ git bisect bad
9e468334b41c1d1fc715de177ef1f61a36c1cf01 is the first bad commit
commit 9e468334b41c1d1fc715de177ef1f61a36c1cf01
Author: Karthik Nayak <karthik.188@gmail.com>
Date:   Fri Oct 30 14:15:28 2015 +0530

    ref-filter: fallback on alphabetical comparison

The message for that commit indicates that sorting numerics (which I assume is the implementation for committerdate) now falls back on alphabetical for identical values, suggesting this order change is actually intentional and correct. Is that right?

(Note: The alphabetical-ness of the branch names is reversed, which seems logical given my original sort was -committerdate. A --sort=refname looks like this.

refs/heads/!@#$% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/!@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:04:06 2012 +1100 refs/heads/% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#$% - >Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100 refs/heads/@#% -> Tue Jan 3 17:00:51 2012 +1100

That's probably more correct too.)

Best regards, Bryan Turner