Re: [PATCH v2 0/4] for-each-ref: introduce seeking functionality via '--skip-until'

> On Jul 04 2025, Karthik Nayak wrote:
>
>> Andreas Schwab <schwab@linux-m68k.org> writes:
>>
>>> On Jul 04 2025, Karthik Nayak wrote:
>>>
>>>> Consider the example
>>>>
>>>>   $ git for-each-ref
>>>>   refs/heads/bar
>>>>   refs/heads/foo
>>>>   refs/heads/main
>>>>
>>>>   $ git for-each-ref --seek=refs/heads/cat
>>>>   refs/heads/foo
>>>>   refs/heads/main
>>>>
>>>> You can see that the reference doesn't have to exist.
>>>
>>> That is even more confusing.  What is the first matching ref if none of
>>> them match?  Doesn't that mean skipping _all_ refs?
>>>
>>
>> Well the idea is it would seek to the offset where the reference would
>> fit in.
>>
>> This is to ensure that seeks to references which were deleted
>> concurrently doesn't leave the client hanging with no results while
>> paginating over all references.
>
> Then don't call it a pattern.  Pattern matching is a set operation,
> independent of sorting.  What you really have is a marker that divides
> the sorted list in two parts according to how the marker sorts.  And
> that makes --start-with more descriptive and less ambiguous.
>