Felipe Contreras wrote:
> But HEAD is special, @ is not. HEAD is documented, @ is not.
Your point being? That we should document @? Yes, I agree.
> Where is it documented that @ points to HEAD? Where is it documented
> that 'branch -u foo @' would replace @ with HEAD?
> Documentation/revisions.txt? Sorry, 'git branch -u foo' does not parse
> revisions, so that's not the answer. And there's many other places
> that don't do revision parsing either.
You're confusing parsing revisions with parsing symbolic-refs. I've
documented @ right next to HEAD, FETCH_HEAD and the other symbolic
refs in revisions.txt. Yes, we have to update the documentation of
commands like 'git branch -u foo' to make it clear that they can
operate on symbolic-refs (not just "HEAD") that point to branches, not
just plain branch refs.
Maybe even a fresh page on symbolic refs?
> Your approach is more like a hack,
Now you're just saying rubbish. Neither of the approaches is more of
a "hack" than the other. You've implemented @ as a revision, while
I've implemented it as a symbolic-ref.
Your approach requires less effort to document, and my approach yields
an implementation that is almost trivial. That is not the basis for
determining which approach is "better".
> it has the consequences we want,
> but it has many other unintentional and undocumented consequences.
Who said it wasn't intentional? Yes, I agree with your criticism
about it being undocumented: please help fixing this.
It's very much intentional. I _want_ these to work:
% git symbolic-ref M refs/heads/master
% git show M@{u}
% git branch -u ram/master M
In other words, I want commands that operate on "HEAD" to also operate
on other symbolic refs similarly. Is this an unreasonable request?
> If I find a single place where 'HEAD' is hard-coded, and your patch
> doesn't replace '@' correctly, would you then accept that there are
> unintentional consequences, and that this approach is no the best
> precisely for that reason?
You'd have found a bug then, and we must fix it. Why are you throwing
useful features out the window simply because of difficulty of
documentation/ historical inertia?
> Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:
>> git branch X <any
>> expression with or without a symbolic ref> works fine, and it has
>> nothing to do with my series.
>
> No, it doesn't.
>
> % git symbolic-ref TEST refs/heads/master
> % git branch -u origin/master TEST
> fatal: branch 'TEST' does not exist
> % git branch --edit-description TEST
> error: No branch named 'TEST'.
Are you reading what you're responding to? I said:
% git branch X @{-1}
% git branch X HEAD
% git symbolic-ref M refs/heads/master
% git branch X M
Will work with or without my patch. This is because git branch <1>
<2> runs <2> through the revision parser.
This will work with my patch:
% git symbolic-ref M refs/heads/master
% git branch -u origin/master M
precisely because:
% git branch -u origin/master HEAD
works. And precisely because this does not:
% git branch -u origin/master @{-1}
In other words, git branch -u <1> <2> expects <2> to be a ref or
symbolic-ref (currently limited to "HEAD"), not a revision. It
doesn't run <2> through the revision parser to check if it resolves to
a ref.
The following will not work:
% git symbolic-ref M refs/heads/master
% git branch --edit-description M
precisely because:
% git branch --edit-description HEAD
does not work. This is because git branch --edit-description <1>
expects <1> to be a non-symbolic ref. It doesn't even hard-code
"HEAD".
Why are you blaming my patch for existing inconsistencies in the UI?
There is one limitation worth nothing: a symbolic-ref can only point
to a ref (or another symbolic ref). The revision parser doesn't kick
in at the resolve_ref_unsafe() stage. So, it's quite non-trivial to
implement what Thomas asked for (git symbolic-ref U @{u}). However, I
think my series is one step in the right direction. I'd really love
symbolic refs I can take along with me (so M -> master can be in my
.gitconfig): we have to hook resolve_ref_unsafe() to the config API to
achieve this.
In other words, I'm thinking about the future of symbolic refs.
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