Re: [PATCH v5 3/4] Recommend git-filter-repo instead of git-filter-branch

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 3, 2019, 21:40 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqo901rrcs.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190903185524.13467-4-newren@gmail.com>

Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

> diff --git a/git-filter-branch.sh b/git-filter-branch.sh
> index 5c5afa2b98..f805965d87 100755
> --- a/git-filter-branch.sh
> +++ b/git-filter-branch.sh
> @@ -83,6 +83,19 @@ set_ident () {
>  	finish_ident COMMITTER
>  }
>  
> +if [ -z "$FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING" -a \
> +     -z "$GIT_TEST_DISALLOW_ABBREVIATED_OPTIONS" ]; then

This is probably the only place where [] instead of "test" is used in our shell scripts.

if test -z "$FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING$GIT_TEST_DISALLOW_ABBREVIATED_OPTIONS"
then
    ...

Show 10 quoted lines

> +	cat <<EOF
> +WARNING: git-filter-branch has a glut of gotchas generating mangled history
> +         rewrites.  Please use an alternative filtering tool such as 'git
> +         filter-repo' (https://github.com/newren/git-filter-repo/) instead.
> +         See the filter-branch manual page for more details; to squelch
> +         this warning, set FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING=1.
> +
> +EOF
> +	sleep 5
> +fi

This should say it is "sleeping while showing the message and can safely be killed before starting to do any harm"; alternatively it should lose the "sleep". The user would have fear against typing ^C to get out of a bulk history rewrite command, and the message itself is making the fear worse. If your goal is to discourage its use, then it would be a good idea to make it clear when it is safe to kill it before going and studying the alternative. Otherwise, the sleep does not help that much---the main complaint is that filter branch is too slow, so the user has plenty of time to read the message anyway, right? ;-)

>  USAGE="[--setup <command>] [--subdirectory-filter <directory>] [--env-filter <command>]
>  	[--tree-filter <command>] [--index-filter <command>]
>  	[--parent-filter <command>] [--msg-filter <command>]