Re: name for A..B ranges?

From: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
Date: Jun 25, 2016, 13:50 UTC
Message-ID: <E61B46FFA8874DD3973AA96BE5B36790@PhilipOakley>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqh9cih6ym.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>

From: "Junio C Hamano" <gitster@pobox.com>

Show 23 quoted lines

> Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
>
>> On Wed, Jun 22, 2016 at 08:25:59AM +0100, Philip Oakley wrote:
>>
>>> Is there a common name for the A..B range format (two dots) that would
>>> complement the A...B (three dots) symmetric range format's name?
>>>
>>> I was looking at the --left-right distinctions and noticed that the 
>>> trail
>>> back to the symmetric range description was rather thin (it's buried 
>>> within
>>> gitrevisions:Specifying Ranges, and even then its called a symmetric
>>> difference.
>>
>> I would just call it a range, or possibly a set difference. But I don't
>> think we have any established naming beyond that.
>
> Yup, I think "range" is the commonly used word in discussions here.
> When inventing A...B as a new thing in addition to A..B, we called
> the former "symmetric difference", and what is implied by that is
> the latter is "asymmetric difference"; we do not say that unless we
> are contrasting between the two, though.
>

I asked because the man page does indicae that it (A..B) is a special sort of revison range and "there is a shorthand for it", but then didn't have a way of naming it.

The symmetric difference is then brought in as a further similar notation. There are a number of Stackoverflow questions about the differences betwee 'two dots' and 'three dots' as well, so having a word/phrase for it could help.

I was thinking that maybe "single-sided difference (two dots)" maybe one choice that is relatively neutral (or even a "two-dot range"...).

-- Philip