Re: [PATCH 2/4] glossary: define committish (a.k.a. commit-ish)

From: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
Date: Jun 19, 2013, 05:56 UTC
Message-ID: <CALkWK0=-PT=QD5enFQhrDZN03xCAttZKtjtT8rE7n4QynT+Ndg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <51C135BE.4030506@bbn.com>

Richard Hansen wrote:

> On 2013-06-19 00:19, Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
>> Is master~3 a committish?  What about :/foomery?
>
> Yes; as documented, both of those are refs that point to a commit.

>From gitglossary(7):

ref
    A 40-byte hex representation of a SHA-1 or a name that denotes a
    particular object. They may be stored in a file under $GIT_DIR/refs/
    directory, or in the $GIT_DIR/packed-refs file.

Do master~3 and :/foomery qualify as refs?

Show 8 quoted lines

>> Look at the other forms in gitrevisions(7); master:quuxery,
>> master^{tree} are notable exceptions.
>
> gitrevisions(7) says that master:quuxery is a ref pointing to a blob or
> tree, so it is not a committish.  However, if quuxery is a submodule, I
> would expect master:quuxery to point to a commit object and thus be a
> committish.  So perhaps the <rev>:<path> description in gitrevisions(7)
> should be updated to accommodate submodules.

When quuxery is a submodule, master:quuxery refers to a commit object that does not exist in the parent repository. I don't know what we gain by documenting a comittish you can't even `show`.