Re: Should `@` be really a valid git tag name?

From: Carlo Arenas <carenas@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 18, 2021, 00:21 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPUEspg3982Wk7vdO-vFimvyApzYwUtsryZdLt1=sLfrrYngyg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqr1dmg5uq.fsf@gitster.g>

On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 4:06 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

>
> Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belón <carenas@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > I was leaning towards something like that plus a Documentation update, but
> > noticed that the current behaviour was inconsistent, and the confusion
> > pointed out by Junio seems to indicate it is better if fully restricted.
>
> That is a bad move, as existing repositories may have a ref with
> such a name.

but if they do, it is currently "ambiguous" as you pointed out, and my patch still allows the use of @ when it is not ambiguous :

  $ git branch @/1 @

so Stefano[1] is safe, and anyone that has such a ref is better of renaming it anyway (which is something I agree we have to add code to my patch to allow somehow)

> If we tighten anything retroactively, we probably should forgid '@'
> short-hand that stands for HEAD, I would think.

regardless of the merits of that feature, it has been in git since ~v1.8.4, so its removal will also be breaking the user experience IMHO.

Carlo

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/520BC017.7050907@gmail.com/