Re: [PATCH] refspec: make @ a valid refspec

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Nov 24, 2020, 20:01 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqlfeqjzi1.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <X7y5Wxu1eY4k6753@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> I wondered if there was a good place to mention this in the refspec
> documentation, but it may just be an obvious fallout of the "@ is a
> shortcut for HEAD" definition in gitrevisions(7). The only change is
> that we're resolving the shortcut sooner so that more code can take
> advantage of it.

I too find that "@ is a shortcut for HEAD" looks ugly both at the UI level and at the implementation level [*1*], but as long as we have it, it is good to try to be consistent and allow "@" everywhere where one would write "HEAD" in places where it is syntacitically infeasible---at least we would be consistently ugly that way ;-).

The title of the change may want to be clarified to help readers of "git shortlog". It's not like it is only changing "@" and no other variants valid refspec, but it forces readers to make sure that the author did not forget to deal with ":@", "src:@", "@:dst", etc. "make @ a synonym to HEAD in refspec" or something along the line, perhaps.

[Footnote]

*1* I shouldn't complain too much, as my own invention to silently turn "-" given from the command line into "@{-1}" is ugly at the code level the same way, even though it may be better at the UI level.