Re: [RFH] GSoC 2015 application

Stefan Beller <sbeller@google.com> writes:

Because "log --since=<date of v1.0> master" and "log v1.0..master" mean two completely different things, we need some way to specify which one of these two the user wants to "git clone" so that the user can say at what point the user wants the shallow history to begin.

I think it is a good idea to use --since for date-based cut-off, in addition to the existing --depth that is depth-based cut-off, and we probably would want another one that gives the topology-based cut-off, so that we can express the range in a similar way to "log v1.0..master".

But when we talk about the topology-based cut-off locally, we always use the set syntax A..B, ^A B, etc. and never a command line option with an argument to specify "the bottom of the history". It is not surprising that you don't remember any usual option for that, because there isn't one.

The closest thing I can think of that looks somewhat like a command line option is "--not", as in

    git log A B --not C D E

that is equivalent to "A B ^C ^D ^E", but that is not an option that takes an argument. I do not know if it is particularly a good idea to say:

    git clone --not v2.0 $URL

to specify topology-based cut-off.

But we would need some way to say a set-based cut-off; I do not think using --since for that purpose is a good idea, though, because that is already taken for date-based cut-off, and mixing them together will introduce confusion.