From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2014 15:58:46 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Add cross-references between docs for for-each-ref and show-ref
Message-ID: <xmqqbnz4ypmx.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <1390389800-26769-1-git-send-email-mhagger@alum.mit.edu>

Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu> writes:

> Add cross-references between the manpages for git-for-each-ref(1) and
> git-show-ref(1).
>
> Signed-off-by: Michael Haggerty <mhagger@alum.mit.edu>
> ---
> There is a lot of overlap between the functionality of these two
> commands.

Two differences I most often use (i.e. take advantage of) are:

 - The former is about showing 0 or more matching refs, and not
   matching anything is a perfectly normal condition, i.e.

   $ git for-each-ref refs/heads/no-such

   exits with status 0.  The latter can be used with --verify to
   check if one ref exists, on the other hand.

 - The former takes the match-from-left-to-right pattern (similar to
   the usual pathspec match), while the latter matches from the
   tail.

   $ git for-each-ref refs/heads/*  ;# only one-level names
   $ git for-each-ref refs/heads/** ;# catches both master and mh/path-max
   $ git show-ref master ;# refs/heads/master, refs/remotes/origin/master,...