Re: [PATCH] for-each-ref: add option to omit newlines

From: Øystein Walle <oystwa@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 14, 2014, 08:11 UTC
Message-ID: <loom.20140214T085928-630@post.gmane.org>
In-Reply-To: <xmqq38jmlqo6.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

Junio C Hamano <gitster <at> pobox.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> 
> I would rather see us go in the direction to add "-z" output option,
> which is what everybody else that produces NUL terminated entries in
> our suite of subcommands does.
>

I agree that -z would help in this case and I very much appreciate that option when using diff --name-only, ls-files, etc.

However, when specifying a format string it's just a matter of ending the format string in '%00' and you're good to go. But then you get the null byte *and* a newline. And with your proposal there would be no way of saying you want neither.

I expected the output to be formatted according to a (repetition of) the format string, not some variation of it that I couldn't opt out of. But I see that git-log also shows this behavior and already has a -z option, so I guess that's fairly ingrained.

Maybe it's just me? In that case I've no problem with throwing in the towel.

Øsse