Re: [PATCH] RFC - Say goodbye to the rodent

> On Wed, Aug 05, 2009 at 05:51:40PM +0800, Nazri Ramliy wrote:
> 
> > The idea is that "git status --id" shows a unique id for each file in
> > its output (modified/staged/unknown/etc). The ids and the
> > corresponding filenames are stored in .git/FILE_IDS. This file gets
> > overwritten everytime you run "git status --id"
> 
> But files _already_ have a unique id: the filename. You never say why
> those unique ids must be cut-and-pasted using the mouse when your unique
> ids would be suitable for typing, but I'll assume it's because your
> unique ids are much shorter than your filenames.
> 
> There are already two classes of solutions to this problem:
> 
>   1. Make typing the filenames easier. Generally, this is accomplished
>      by tab completion. Even stock bash (and other shells) should
>      complete filenames easily, but you can also complete much more
>      using the programmable bash completion included with git.
> 
>      The main advantage of this approach is that it is totally
>      generalizable. Anytime you have to input a filename, you can use
>      it.
> 
>   2. Structure your workflow to iterate over the list of items to be
>      acted on, and then select actions for each item. This is what "git
>      add -i" does, as well as "git mergetool" and "git difftool".
> 
>      This can save a lot of typing over (1), but requires a new script
>      for every such workflow (e.g., the scripts above cover only adding,
>      resolving merges, and diffing; you would need a new script to
>      iterate over files, doing "git checkout" on each one, for example).