Re: [PATCH 0/4] rev-list: introduce NUL-delimited output mode

> Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im> writes:
> 
> > On Tue, Mar 11, 2025 at 07:57:20PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> >> On Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 02:28:25PM -0500, Justin Tobler wrote:
> >> 
> >> > To make machine parsing easier, this series introduces a NUL-delimited
> >> > output mode for git-rev-list(1) via a `-z` option following a suggestion
> >> > from Junio in a previous thread[1]. In this mode, instead of LF, each
> >> > object is delimited with two NUL bytes and any object metadata is
> >> > separated with a single NUL byte. Examples:
> >> > 
> >> >         <oid> NUL NUL
> >> >         <oid> [NUL <path>] NUL NUL
> >> >         ?<oid> [NUL <token>=<value>]... NUL NUL
> >> > 
> >> > In this mode, path and value info are printed as-is without any special
> >> > encoding or truncation.
> >> 
> >> I think this is a good direction, but I have two compatibility
> >> questions:
> >> 
> >>   1. What should "git rev-list -z --stdin" do? In most other programs
> >>      with a "-z" option it affects both input and output. I don't
> >>      particularly care about this case myself, but it will be hard to
> >>      change later. So we probably want to decide now.
> >
> > I would lean into the direction of making "-z" change the format both
> > for stdin and stdout. That's what we do in most cases, and in those
> > cases where we didn't we came to regret it (git-cat-file(1)).
> 
> I've seen "-Z", in addition to "-z", used to differentiate between
> input and output in some commands.  If we are not going to do that,
> I agree that making "-z" to affect both input and output is less
> surprising than having to remember which side is still text.