Re: ':/<oneline prefix>' notation doesn't support full file syntax

From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
Date: Jul 3, 2008, 12:38 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.DEB.1.00.0807031333150.9925@racer>
In-Reply-To: <279b37b20807030150t2e9cbcc8wf099a5872568af8@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

On Thu, 3 Jul 2008, Eric Raible wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 1:34 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> > "Eric Raible" <raible@gmail.com> writes:
> >
> > Is there anything to fix?  In that example, you are looking for a 
> > commit that talks about "object name:sha1_name.c" in the comment.
> 
> Yes.  What if I'm looking for specific file (i.e. sha1_name.c) in the 
> commit described by ":/object name:", just like I can do with 
> 28a4d9404:sha1_name.c?
> 
> This is not ambiguous if we first consider the entire string as the 
> prefix. If that fails we look for a filename after the final ':'.

It is super-expensive, as you have to look through the whole history just to find that you do not find anything.

And then, it could be that you do find a commit that starts with that string, but what you really wanted it a file, not a commit.

And then, a file name can contain colons.  What to do in that case?

I think your "fix" is not worth it. ":/<oneline>" is to help you find a commit, and it will only ever find the first commit anyway, so you are probably better off using

	$ git show $(git log --pretty=format:%H:path/to/file.c \
		--grep=^<oneline>)

to begin with.

Really, the only reason I ever wrote support for ":/blah" is when someone 
less-than-helpful says "In commit 'Bla bla bla' you broke XYZ" and I want 
to
	$ git show :/Bla

Nowadays, however, I would

	$ git log -p --grep=^Bla

so I'd vote to remove the ":/" syntax altogether. We need not even concern ourselves with scripts using that syntax, since the semantics are so limited that nobody should use it in scripts anyway.

Ciao, Dscho