Re: git status --porcelain is a mess that needs fixing

> On Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:09:59 -0400, Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:
>> Your parser is already broken if you are calling split, as the filenames
>> may contain spaces (and will be quoted in that case, and you need to
>> unmangle). You should use "-z".
>>
>> You will probably then realize that the "-z" format looks like:
>>
>>   XY file1\0file2\0
>>
>> which still sucks. It would be more friendly as:
>>
>>   XY\0file1\0file2\0
>>
>> So you could split on "\0". But even with that, you can't just blindly
>> split, as the column and record separators are the same, and you might
>> have one or two filenames.
>
> Not true.  If the second form was used, then you _can_ split on \0.  It
> will tokenise the data for you, and then you consume ether two or three
> tokens depending on the status flags.  So it would make the parsing
> simpler.  But to make it even easier, how about adding a -Z that makes the
> output format "XY\0file1\0[file2]\0" (i.e. always three tokens per record,
> with the third token being empty if there is no second filename)?  Though
> if future expandability was wanted you could end each record with \0\0 and
> then parsing would be a two stages of split on \0\0 for records and then
> split on \0 for entries?