From: Linus Torvalds Date: Wed, 19 Apr 2006 00:44:13 GMT Subject: Re: [RFC] get_sha1() shorthands for blob/tree objects Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <7vy7y2csv8.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> On Tue, 18 Apr 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > Yes, I wanted to do this myself for a while. The only issue I > might have is what the separator character between rev and path > should be. I didn't put a lot of thought into it, but using ':' not only is pretty visually pleasing, it also means that shell completion automatically works at least on bash, even without any git-specific completion rules. That's not true for a lot of other special characters: colon really is special, exactly because it has been used for things like PATH separators, etc. I'm a total filename completion junkie - I simply cannot type in a filename any more. I'll literally press to complete even short filenames, just because it gives me that nice confirmation of the existence of the filename (ie I've typed it all in, and the adds the space after the filename). So to me, ':' is just clearly superior. I can't think of any other separator that works with filename completion and has no shell issues, _and_ looks logical. And I thought we already disallowed ':' in branch names because cogito uses them for the strange : syntax.. Linus