From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2016 16:26:32 GMT
Subject: Re: [RFD/BUG?] git show with tree/commit
Message-ID: <xmqq4mb6sshz.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <570D154D.6090006@drmicha.warpmail.net>

Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:

> $ git show cab2cdadfda8e8e8631026443b11d3ed6e7ba517:
> tree cab2cdadfda8e8e8631026443b11d3ed6e7ba517:
>
> .gitattributes
> .gitignore
> .mailmap
> ...
>
> While it's clear to me what's going on, I'm wondering whether it's a
> good idea that "git show" says "tree" in front of the unresolved
> treeish, whether it's a tree, a commit or something else. I think it's
> pretty confusing.

There is no "unresolved treeish" on the line that begins with
"tree", but I suspect it wasn't very clear to you because of the way
you gave the command its input; notice the line in question ends
with a colon, which is unfortunate, but it turns out that it is your
fault ;-).  Read on.

> Alternatives would be:
>
> tree <resolved tree id> # here: 040...
> treeish <treeish>	# here: "treeish cab2c..."
> tree <treeish>^{tree} 	# here: "tree cab2c^{tree}"

So, the three choices are

 (1) resolve the tree object name to 40-hex and show it as
     "tree <object name in hex>"

 (2) given an object that is not a tree, show it as "treeish <object
     name>" 

 (3) do not do anything fancy, just show it as "tree <object name>"
     using what the user gave us.

I think the current output is doing the third one (notice the colon
at the end of the line).

    $ git show master: | head -n 1
    $ git show master^{tree} | head -n 1
    $ git show cab2cdadf: | head -n 1