On 02/07, Linus Torvalds wrote:
>
> From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2017 21:05:28 -0800
> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] pathspec magic: add '^' as alias for '!'
>
> The choice of '!' for a negative pathspec ends up not only not matching
> what we do for revisions, it's also a horrible character for shell
> expansion since it needs quoting.
>
> So add '^' as an alternative alias for an excluding pathspec entry.
>
> Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> pathspec.c | 6 ++++++
> 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/pathspec.c b/pathspec.c
> index 7ababb315..ecad03406 100644
> --- a/pathspec.c
> +++ b/pathspec.c
> @@ -224,6 +224,12 @@ static const char *parse_short_magic(unsigned *magic, const char *elem)
> char ch = *pos;
> int i;
>
> + /* Special case alias for '!' */
> + if (ch == '^') {
> + *magic |= PATHSPEC_EXCLUDE;
> + continue;
> + }
> +
> if (!is_pathspec_magic(ch))
> break;
I like adding '^' to be an alias for excluding patterns. There have
been numerous times where I have wanted to use exclude patterns and
forgotten that I've needed to do some escape magic to get my shell to
leave '!' alone.
The only issue I see with doing this is that if a user supplies an
exclude pattern for a command which doesn't support exclude pathspec
magic the unsupported_magic() function will have slightly cryptic
output.
git cmd -- :^dir
would produce some output which says:
':^dir': pathspec magic not supported by this command: 'exclude' (mnemonic: '!')
And the user may scratch their head for a second since they didn't
supply the '!' character, but rather '^'. That being said I think it
should be fine since the long name of the magic is also printed so the
user should be able to figure out what's wrong. I also don't think
there are any users of pathspecs which disallow exclude magic so this
may not even be an issue.
--
Brandon Williams