From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 18:22:21 GMT
Subject: Re: A note on merging conflicts..
Message-ID: <e86ega$gnc$1@sea.gmane.org>
In-Reply-To: <20060701180125.GA27550@fieldses.org>

J. Bruce Fields wrote:

> On Sat, Jul 01, 2006 at 05:09:26PM +0200, Rene Scharfe wrote:
>> +Another special notation is <commit1>...<commit2> which is useful for
>> +merges.  The resulting set of commits is the symmetric difference
>> +between the two operands.  The following two commands are equivalent:
> 
> What's the logic behind naming the operator "..."?
> 
> Seems like asking for trouble to have two visually similar operators (".." and
> "...") with different meanings, and "..." seems like kind of an arbitrary
> choice anyway.

Because A...B is extension of A..B for merges.

> A symmetric difference is basically equivalent to an xor--would a carat ("^")
> work?  Or could we just stick a word there instead of using some tricky
> notation?

Caret is used twice, with different meaning. As prefix operator "^" means 
"exclude lineage of commit" (while commit without "^" in front means:
"include lineage of commit and commit itself"). BTW. why we don't use '!'
for that?

As postfix operator "^" means "dereference", i.e. parent in the case 
of commit; allows choosing a parent (commit^n) and listing all parents 
(commit^@). Using it as binary infix operator that would be I think 
too much. 

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Warsaw, Poland
ShadeHawk on #git