Jerome Lovy wrote:
Hi,
While I am very happy with the refactorings undertaken with regard to
"git add/git commit" (both for UI and documentation), I am still a
little confused by the different ways I seem to find to express the idea
"I want to add (sort of) all file contents".
To be more specific, I find the following in the current documentation:
git add <dir>
"adds content from all files under <dir> directory and its
subdirectories."
(as interpreted from the "EXAMPLES" section of the git-add
man-page)
(BTW, could this <dir> usage be documented in the SYNOPSIS and
DESCRIPTION sections (admittedly at a 2nd rank after the
currently documented usage) as well as in the EXAMPLES ?
Besides this reference sections would probably include the
<dir>/<regexp> usage that I've not mentioned here for the sake
of simplicity.)
Moreover, the tutorial documents the typical usage "git add ."
git commit -a|--all
"automatically stage files that have been modified and deleted,
but new files you have not told git about are not affected."
Granted, the latter semantics for "all" is not exactly the same as the
former. Nonetheless, I think it would be very nice to only have to
memorize one way to express "all".
But the former isn't "all"; It's a specific directory, although "."
happens to *look* like "all", you can run "git add ." in a subdirectory
inside the repository and it won't mean "all" anymore. Likewise, you can
say "git commit ." from a subdirectory and have it commit all changes to
all tracked files under that directory.
To this end, I would be very happy with the following:
(X-mas is coming soon, isn't it ;-) )
git add <dir>
same semantics
git commit -a|--add <files>
"adds content from the specified files before committing
(files that are already tracked have their current content
staged)"
git commit -a|--add <dir>
"adds content from all files under <dir> directory and its
subdirectories before committing"
(once again, for simplification of my explanations, I omit the
<dir>/<regexp> usage here)
git commit -u|--update <dir>
"automatically stage files that have been modified and deleted
under <dir> directory and its subdirectories, but new files you
have not told git about are not affected."
(once again, for simplification of my explanations, I omit the
<dir>/<regexp> usage here)
But this isn't "commit" at all. It's "git add".
(This would allow the typical usage "git commit -u ." which is
barely longer than the current "git commit -a")
For interface completeness, "git commit -u|--update <files>" could also
exist but would probably be of no use.
To sum up, "all" would be consistently expressed with the <dir> syntax.
"git commit -a" would not mean "--all" anymore. Lastly, a distinction
would be made between "--add" and "--update":
- "git commit -add" would have the same semantics as "git add"
This is bollocks. git commit should commit things. We'll be in some
serious trouble if "git commit -a" stops working the way it has and
starts just adding things to index.
- "git commit --update" on the other hand would only affect the files
already tracked
I fail to see what you're after with the changes propsed in this mail.
Is there a use-case you've encountered where you wanted to do something
that wasn't possible, or easy enough, that made you post this?
Unless it's a very, very good reason I most urgently think we're better
off keeping the current "git commit -a" behaviour.
--
Andreas Ericsson andreas.ericsson@xxxxxx
OP5 AB www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225 Fax: +46 8-230231
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