Re: [PATCH] git-grep: add --color to highlight matches

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: May 26, 2008, 11:29 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0805261227440.30431@racer>
In-Reply-To: <fcaeb9bf0805260407r6a1bea23v3861d3c43df01939@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Mon, 26 May 2008, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Johannes Schindelin
> <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, 26 May 2008, Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
> >
> >> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Johannes Schindelin
> >> <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> wrote:
> >> > Besides, it would be a kludge at best to work _twice_ to find out 
> >> > the search terms, once in the external grep, and a second time in 
> >> > the coloring code.  So I think it should not be done.
> >>
> >> I think if it's GNU grep, just passing it --color, it will grep and 
> >> colorize search terms in one turn.
> >
> > And what tells you that the called grep is GNU grep?
> 
> A newly added macro like HAS_GNU_GREP? Granted it won't work all the
> time. The user who set the macro should know what he is doing. This
> approach is IMHO fine as long as we don't allow color customization.

IMO this is just a kludge that is not even necessary, because the whole notion of relying on an external grep's colorization is crap.

The OP has a patch that adds colorization to Git's internal grep code. The user specifies "--color" with grep? Fine, then it's no external grep. Full stop.

Just like the original patch implements it. Nice, simple, and easy. What is so wrong with that?

Ciao, Dscho