# Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. 5 messages from 2023-11-06 to 2023-11-07. Participants: Joanna Wang, Jeff King, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/60479 ## Joanna Wang, 2023-11-06 15:54 Subject: Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/CAMmZTi-JJ6%3DUw_%2Br50hKMYf34D0NtqXhaA%3Df%2B11%2BwAQBjqA7_g%40mail.gmail.com ``` What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue) What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior) `git stash push -- :file` where `:` is part of the filename, should search for files named ":file" What happened instead? (Actual behavior) The match string used to find files is "file" without the ":". What's different between what you expected and what actually happened? file named ":file" is not found. Anything else you want to add: I believe this is due to parse_short_magic() not handling the case where ":" is part of the file name rather than a prefix for pathspec magic. I could not find any documentation that says ":" is a reserved character to indicate pathspec magic symbols MUST follow or that ":file" is not a valid file name. [System Info] git version 2.42.0 cpu: x86_64 no commit associated with this build shell-path: /bin/sh [Enabled Hooks] not run from a git repository - no hooks to show ``` ## Jeff King, 2023-11-06 17:31 Subject: Re: Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. Message-ID: <20231106173133.GC10414@coredump.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20231106173133.GC10414%40coredump.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Mon, Nov 06, 2023 at 10:54:03AM -0500, Joanna Wang wrote: > What did you do before the bug happened? (Steps to reproduce your issue) > > What did you expect to happen? (Expected behavior) > `git stash push -- :file` where `:` is part of the filename, should search > for files named ":file" > > What happened instead? (Actual behavior) > The match string used to find files is "file" without the ":". > > What's different between what you expected and what actually happened? > file named ":file" is not found. > > Anything else you want to add: > I believe this is due to parse_short_magic() not handling the case where > ":" is part of the file name rather than a prefix for pathspec magic. > > I could not find any documentation that says ":" is a reserved > character to indicate pathspec magic symbols MUST follow or that > ":file" is not a valid file name. I think this is the correct behavior according to the documentation. From "git help glossary", the entry on "pathspec" says: A pathspec that begins with a colon : has special meaning. In the short form, the leading colon : is followed by zero or more "magic signature" letters (which optionally is terminated by another colon :), and the remainder is the pattern to match against the path. So ":file" just has zero magic signature letters. I think you want: :::file which of course is rather ugly, but then so is your filename. ;) Although longer, probably this is more readable: :(literal):file And if you're working with a lot of such files (or you are scripting and know you have a set of filenames), then your best bet is probably turning on literal mode, like: git --literal-pathspecs ls-files -- :file -Peff PS It took me a while to figure out where we document pathspec syntax. I wonder if a "gitpathspecs" manpage would make sense, like we have "gitrevisions". ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2023-11-06 23:25 Subject: Re: Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqlebacvn3.fsf%40gitster.g In-Reply-To: ``` Joanna Wang writes: > I believe this is due to parse_short_magic() not handling the case where > ":" is part of the file name rather than a prefix for pathspec magic. Also, ":" is a notation for the object name sitting at in the index, so giving it from the command line is ambiguous, too. I thought that ./: would be a common way to talk about such a path to git commands? $ date >./:now.txt $ git add ./:now.txt $ git rm ./:now.txt I do not offhand remember where this is documented, but I agree that we need to make sure that we give help to users on things like this ("how do I add a file whose name begins with a dash" is another question I think we hear from time to time). Thanks. ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2023-11-06 23:29 Subject: Re: Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqfs1icvfl.fsf%40gitster.g In-Reply-To: <20231106173133.GC10414@coredump.intra.peff.net> ``` Jeff King writes: > PS It took me a while to figure out where we document pathspec syntax. I > wonder if a "gitpathspecs" manpage would make sense, like we have > "gitrevisions". Yeah, I came to the same conclusion (should have saved time by scanning the mailing list before I started writing my response) and wondered where we wrote it down. The description you found in the glossary, as far as I recall, is the authoritative one and looks readable, but I agree it is not as discoverable as it should be. A simpler and more readable workaround than ":::file" is "./:file" by the way ;-) ``` ## Jeff King, 2023-11-07 03:25 Subject: Re: Bug: magic-less pathspecs that start with ":" not processed as expected. Message-ID: <20231107032144.GA873619@coredump.intra.peff.net> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20231107032144.GA873619%40coredump.intra.peff.net In-Reply-To: ``` On Tue, Nov 07, 2023 at 08:29:34AM +0900, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Jeff King writes: > > > PS It took me a while to figure out where we document pathspec syntax. I > > wonder if a "gitpathspecs" manpage would make sense, like we have > > "gitrevisions". > > Yeah, I came to the same conclusion (should have saved time by > scanning the mailing list before I started writing my response) and > wondered where we wrote it down. The description you found in the > glossary, as far as I recall, is the authoritative one and looks > readable, but I agree it is not as discoverable as it should be. > > A simpler and more readable workaround than ":::file" is "./:file" > by the way ;-) Oh, indeed. That is much less horrible than ":(literal)". :) -Peff ```