Vegard Nossum <vegard.nossum@xxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> I use rev^..rev daily, and I'm surely not the only one. To save typing
> (or copy-pasting, if the rev is long -- like a full SHA-1 or branch name)
> we can make rev% a shorthand for that.
No, we cannot.
'%' is not reserved as a special character that is forbidden in
reference names, and for somebody who has a branch whose name is
'master%', such a change will suddenly make 'master%' mean something
completely different, breaking existing users' repositories.
This is why existing rev^@ and rev^! both use the "^" as the first
character that introduces the "magic" semantics; "^" cannot be a
part of a refname. Also sequences that begin with "^{" and "@{" are
reserved as escape hatches to allow us extend the revision syntax in
the future ("^{" works on history, while "@{" bases its working on
the reflog data).
As "rev^$n" is "nth parent", it may be a possibility to use "rev^-$n"
as a short-hand for "^rev^$n rev".