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--interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

Subject: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

## tl;dr

6 messages between Jul 20, 2017 and Jul 20, 2017.

replies: 5people: 3as markdown or json

Marcel Partap· Jul 20, 2017, 08:21 UTC · lore

Dear git devs, wouldn't it be great to have the power of readline added to the power of git interactive commands? Yes, rlwrap will do the job, but still. Or am I missing something obvious? Am using debian's 2.11.0-2 ...

#BestRegards/Marcel Partap
Martin Ågren· Jul 20, 2017, 08:47 UTC · re: Marcel Partap · lore

Re: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

On 20 July 2017 at 10:21, Marcel Partap <mpartap@gmx.net> wrote:
> wouldn't it be great to have the power of readline added to the power of git interactive commands? Yes, rlwrap will do the job, but still.
> Or am I missing something obvious?

Well maybe *I* am missing something obvious. :) Could you be a bit more specific? What is the use-case? Once this feature were in place, what would it look like? Could you give an example of what you as a user would do to solve some particular problem -- and how that differs from how you would solve it today?

Martin
Marcel Partap· Jul 20, 2017, 09:20 UTC · re: Martin Ågren · lore

Re: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

Ok very good point Martin ; ) I nefariously hid one obvious use case as trailing emoji™ in the subject, but a better way to make a point is to properly explain. So the readline library powers the advanced line editing capabilities behind f.e. the bash or the ipython shell. Besides navigating with the cursor keys, it provides a history function accessible by the up cursor key ⌨⬆ . At the moment, git interactive mode seems (?) not to make use of it, so there's no line editing at all. A typo at the beginning of a line must be corrected by reverse deleting up to it, then retyping the rest unchanged. With readline, the home/end keys for jumping to beginning or end work, as do the left/right keys in a familiar way. The history function comes in handy when f.e. repeatedly using `git clean -i` and feeding the "filter by pattern" command a string like "*.patch". Like, that's the use case that prompted me to write to this list. : )

#Best Regards/Marcel
Martin Ågren· Jul 20, 2017, 11:50 UTC · re: Marcel Partap · lore

Re: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

On 20 July 2017 at 11:20, Marcel Partap <mpartap@gmx.net> wrote:
> So the readline library powers the advanced line editing capabilities behind f.e. the bash or the ipython shell. Besides navigating with the cursor keys, it provides a history function accessible by the up cursor key ⌨⬆ .
> At the moment, git interactive mode seems (?) not to make use of it, so there's no line editing at all. A typo at the beginning of a line must be corrected by reverse deleting up to it, then retyping the rest unchanged. With readline, the home/end keys for jumping to beginning or end work, as do the left/right keys in a familiar way.
> The history function comes in handy when f.e. repeatedly using `git clean -i` and feeding the "filter by pattern" command a string like "*.patch". Like, that's the use case that prompted me to write to this list. : )

Ok, I see. When I saw your first mail, I was thinking about "git rebase -i" and thought, "how could that possibly help?". :) I have no idea what it would take to implement this (portably!) in git.

Martin
Marcel Partap· Jul 20, 2017, 12:06 UTC · re: Martin Ågren · lore

Re: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

Haha, totally slipped by me that there exist two kinds of interactive mode. Not that I haven't used both... Sorry for overlooking/being to unspecific.
#Regards/Marcel X )
Leah Neukirchen· Jul 20, 2017, 16:53 UTC · re: Marcel Partap · lore

Re: --interactive mode: readline support ⌨⬆

Marcel Partap <mpartap@gmx.net> writes:
> Dear git devs,
> wouldn't it be great to have the power of readline added to the power
> of git interactive commands? Yes, rlwrap will do the job, but still.
> Or am I missing something obvious? Am using debian's 2.11.0-2 ...
Just use "rlwrap git clean -i".
-- 
Leah Neukirchen  <leah@vuxu.org>  http://leah.zone

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