RE: git & patterns

From: Tim Mazid <timmazid@hotmail.com>
Date: May 19, 2011, 06:40 UTC
Message-ID: <SNT124-w95A0758AAE98C128DB9A2C48E0@phx.gbl>
In-Reply-To: <4DD4B772.2050404@hupie.com>

Sorry; just thought I'd chime in as a "regular" git user; one who actually has to read the documentation to figure things out instead just knowing it because they helped code it.

Show 13 quoted lines

> >> - could the manual page be update to make this explicit please? (plus
> >> other manual pages talking about (shell) patterns)
> >
> > The general design guideline we have is to use glob for things that look
> > like pathnames. Refs, refspecs, ignore and attribute rules are the
> > examples of this rule.
> >
>
> Well, to me tags do not look like pathnames at all, they're just
> 'random' strings. As are branches.
> Technically they may be like pathnames because they're projected on to
> the filesystem that way, but principally they're not IMHO: it's an
> implementation detail.

I must agree here. As a non-git-developer, I did not think of tags or branches as pathnames.

Show 14 quoted lines

> > We may be lacking this info in our documentation. A patch to add it
> > somewhere is very welcome.
>
> Yesterday I already did a quick grep on pattern and glob in the
> documentation directory and found that:
> - usually patterns are just patterns, without specifying what kind
> - when a pattern type is specified it most of the time is a glob pattern
> - but sometimes it is called a shell pattern
> - and a few cases speak of a wildcard pattern (I think)
>
> What should it be?
> From your comments I gather it should be a glob pattern.
> Isn't glob too 'tech speak' or is it acceptable?
> If not acceptable, then what? Shell wildcard pattern?

I would not say that glod is too tech speak, as long is it was clearly explained somewhere easily accessible. If it's never explained, or buried deep within the manpage for some random command, then it certainly should not be assumed that the reader knows what it is.

Speaking of which, I'm still not too sure what a glob is.

Is there a "concepts" or "glossary" man page or similar somewhere that explains all the terms used in git that an "outsider" (somebody who does not develop git and just began to use it) might not be aware of?

If there is not, might I suggest it be a good idea to include one as well references to it so that a rookie will know they should look there for explanations of terms?

Tim.

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