Re: [PATCH 0/9] for-each-ref optimizations & usability improvements

From: Victoria Dye <vdye@github.com>
Date: Nov 7, 2023, 02:48 UTC
Message-ID: <dbcbcf0e-aeee-4bb9-9e39-e2e85194d083@github.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqo7g69tmf.fsf@gitster.g>

Junio C Hamano wrote:

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> "Victoria Dye via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> This series is a bit of an informal follow-up to [1], adding some more
>> substantial optimizations and usability fixes around ref
>> filtering/formatting. Some of the changes here affect user-facing behavior,
>> some are internal-only, but they're all interdependent enough to warrant
>> putting them together in one series.
>>
>> [1]
>> https://lore.kernel.org/git/pull.1594.v2.git.1696888736.gitgitgadget@gmail.com/
>>
>> Patch 1 changes the behavior of the '--no-sort' option in 'for-each-ref',
>> 'tag', and 'branch'. Currently, it just removes previous sort keys and, if
>> no further keys are specified, falls back on ascending refname sort (which,
>> IMO, makes the name '--no-sort' somewhat misleading).
> 
> We can read it changes the behaviour and what the current behaviour
> is, but I presume that the untold new behaviour with --no-sort is to
> show the output in an unspecified order of implementation's
> convenience?  I think it makes quite a lot of sense if that is what
> is done.

Ah sorry, I over-edited my cover letter and accidentally removed the explanation of what this patch does! Yes - the new behavior is that '--no-sort' (assuming there are no subsequent --sort=<something> options) will completely skip sorting the filtered refs.

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>>  * I'm not attached to '--full-deref' as a name - if someone has an idea for
>>    a more descriptive name, please suggest it!
> 
> Another candidate verb may be "to peel", and I have no strong
> opinion between it and "to dereference".  But I have a mild aversion
> to an abbreviation that is not strongly established.
>

Makes sense. I got the "deref" abbreviation for 'update-ref --no-deref', but 'show-ref' has a "--dereference" option and protocol v2's "ls-refs" includes a "peel" arg. "Dereference" is the term already used in the 'for-each-ref' documentation, though, so if no one comes in with an especially strong opinion on this I'll change the option to '--full-dereference'. Thanks!