Re: [PATCH 2/3] hash-object doc: elaborate on -w and --literally promises

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 28, 2019, 16:49 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqd0k24j7s.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190520215312.10363-3-avarab@gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason  <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Clarify the hash-object docs to explicitly note that the --literally
> option guarantees that a loose object will be written, but that a
> normal -w ("write") invocation doesn't.
>
> At first I thought talking about "loose object" in the docs was a
> mistake in 83115ac4a8 ("git-hash-object.txt: document --literally
> option", 2015-05-04), but as is clear from 5ba9a93b39 ("hash-object:
> add --literally option", 2014-09-11) this was intended all along.

I have to admit that this "loose only" was the doing of my defeatism. IOW, I was utterly pessimistic that I would be able to add more types (and more importantly, unbounded number of random types) of objects in the packstream.

So, "loose object" limitation is a practical one for those of us who cannot think of a reasonable way to cram arbitrary number of random new types into just 3 bits of the "type" bitfield, and not inherent to the "hash-object --literally" command.

So I am very happy to see the first hunk of this patch, but I doubt there is much value in the last sentence the second hunk adds.

Thanks.