Re: [PATCH] pretty: allow to override the built-in formats

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 8, 2020, 18:12 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqzh60xhms.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20200908135303.GA2448968@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

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> You could accomplish something similar by having gitk look up
> pretty.userReference, and defaulting to something sensible if it's not
> defined. For a big script like gitk that's not too much of an
> imposition. But it's awfully convenient to be able to just say
> --format=reference in any script and get the user's preferred format.

Or --format=userReference in any script, and then allow it to fall back to pretty.reference that is otherwise ignored? Ah, that indeed is what you suggested with --format=loose:reference already.

> So of any of the formats, it seems like the most likely candidate for
> such a feature (setting "pretty.raw" would be a pretty big foot-gun, for
> instance). I don't like the inconsistency it introduces between formats,
> though.

Yes, the inconsistency was what primarily disturbed me.

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> Here's a slightly different proposal. I'm not sure if I like it or not,
> but just thinking out loud for a moment. The issue is that we're worried
> the consumer of the output may be surprised by a user-configured pretty
> format. Can we give them a way to say "I don't care about the exact
> output; pick what the user configured for this name, or some sane
> default". I.e., something like:
>
>   git log --format=loose:reference

Yeah, that, or with s/loose/user/ or something.