Re: [PATCH v8 2/4] cat-file: teach cat-file a '--literally' option

From: Eric Sunshine <sunshine@sunshineco.com>
Date: Apr 21, 2015, 19:40 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPig+cRmPv5u_OCtUPNoYOUcOoa9xn++Xw-rkD6EP6_eq0YvEQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20150421101641.GA13202@hashpling.org>

On Tue, Apr 21, 2015 at 6:16 AM, Charles Bailey <charles@hashpling.org> wrote:

Show 22 quoted lines

> On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 09:22:47PM +0530, karthik nayak wrote:
>> On 04/20/2015 02:49 PM, Charles Bailey wrote:
>> >As far as I could tell - and please correct me if I've misunderstood,
>> >cat-file's literally is about dealing with unrecognized types whereas
>> >hash-object's --literally is about both creating objects with bad types
>> >and invalid objects of "recognized" types. This latter scenario is where
>> >the option name "literally" makes the most sense.
>> Yes. What you're saying is correct, but it also makes sense as we're asking
>> "cat-file" to give us information about the object irrespective of the type of the
>> object, hence asking it to literally print the information. Also it stays as a compliment
>> to "hash-object --literally", which is already existing.
>
> OK, I think you've hit the main point which I was trying to make.
>
> To me, "literally" means "without transformation" or "exactly as
> written/recorded/transmitted" (which -t/-s do anyway) and doesn't really
> encompass the "irrespective of type" meaning that it has been given here.
>
> In any case, I've made my point so I won't labour it any further. I
> think that --no-validation or --allow-any-type might be more accurate
> but if everyone else is happy enough with --literally then I'm happy to
> live with that too.

It's easy to be blinded into thinking that cat-file's new option should be named --literally since it was inspired by the --literally option of hash-object, but indeed it may not be the best choice.

In addition to your above suggestions (and --unchecked which you proposed earlier), if we take inspiration from existing Git options, perhaps one of the following (or something derived from them) would be better?

    --force
    --ignore-errors
    --no-check
    --unsafe
    --no-strict
    --aggressive

Or, some pure made-up bike-shedding?

    --try-harder
    --allow-bogus-type
    --ignore-bogus-type
    --loose
    --gently