Re: [PATCH/alternative/raw and rough] setup.c: denote repo wide pathspecs by ':'

From: Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>
Date: Mar 3, 2011, 02:42 UTC
Message-ID: <buo4o7kc4ce.fsf@dhlpc061.dev.necel.com>
In-Reply-To: <4D6E7EF0.5040106@drmicha.warpmail.net>

Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:

Show 7 quoted lines

>>  Would this ':'
>> trick affect that argument?  If a command is relative to the cwd with no
>> pathspec, you can now give a single ':' to affect the whole tree.
>
> In my view yes. I would even say: If we don't change every single
> command to repo-wide default there is no need to change (and break
> things) if we have an easy one-character way of saying "repo-wide".

... except, of course that the current state is still confusingly inconsistent. Even if ":" is available, and even if somebody knows about it, they won't use it unless they know they have to because people are lazy, particularly when typing at the command-line.

There will _still_ be tons of times when people don't realize they're in a subdirectory, and so need ":", or don't realize that command X doesn't follow the majority of commands in using the "no args = root relative" behavior. So the current state of things is still somewhat dangerous for users.

Something like ":" would be a great feature for scripting though.

-Miles

-- 
Discriminate, v.i. To note the particulars in which one person or thing is,
if possible, more objectionable than another.