From: Linus Torvalds Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:19:31 GMT Subject: Re: [RFD} Use regex's in :/ revision naming machinery Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <4BBAE904.6010105@viscovery.net> On Tue, 6 Apr 2010, Johannes Sixt wrote: > > Am 4/6/2010 1:00, schrieb Linus Torvalds: > > I never use ':/', and part of it is that it's so horribly cumbersome. I'd > > _like_ to use it to do things like > > > > gitk :/slabh.. > > Rhethoric question: Do you mean history _starting_ at the commit that > contains "slabh" or _ending_ at the commit that contains "slabh" followed > by two arbitrary characters? Ending in the commit that contains "slabh". The last two dots are removed by the revision handling machinery, _before_ we even see the ':/' thing. See 'handle_revision_arg()', and notice how it searches for ".." and then does "*dotdot = 0". So the regex is 'slabh'. > If :/ is pattern-ized in some way, then IMO pattern matching syntax would > be more use-friendly than (extended) regular expresssions, particluarly > also because the single-character wildcard would be ? and avoid the > otherwise overloaded dot. I do agree that regex'es might contain the invalid sequence "..", but it's fairly unusual, and you can work around it, ie you can do gitk :/'slabh(.)(.)of'.. which now that I write it out admittedly looks like you are searching for titties, but hey, sex sells, so we can call it a _feature_. Linus