From: Phillip Wood Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 14:44:33 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH 00/12] show-ref: introduce mode to check for ref existence Message-ID: In-Reply-To: On 25/10/2023 15:26, Han-Wen Nienhuys wrote: > On Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 9:17 PM Junio C Hamano wrote: >> >> Patrick Steinhardt writes: >> >>> this patch series introduces a new `--exists` mode to git-show-ref(1) to >>> explicitly check for the existence of a reference, only. >> >> I agree that show-ref would be the best place for this feature (not >> rev-parse, which is already a kitchen sink). After all, the command >> was designed for validating refs in 358ddb62 (Add "git show-ref" >> builtin command, 2006-09-15). >> >> Thanks. Hopefully I can take a look before I go offline. > > The series description doesn't say why users would care about this. > > If this is just to ease testing, I suggest adding functionality to a > suitable test helper. Anything you add to git-show-ref is a publicly > visible API that needs documentation and comes with a stability > guarantee that is more expensive to maintain than test helper > functionality. Does the new functionality provide a way for scripts to see if a branch is unborn (i.e. has not commits yet)? I don't think we have a way to distinguish between a ref that points to a missing object and an unborn branch at the moment. Best Wishes Phillip