On 2025-02-18 at 18:16:32, Junio C Hamano wrote: > I agree BUG is unwelcome. I am not sure about the value of > forbidding an empty string (I am sure about forbidding NULL, > though). > > If an empty matches everything, "git log -S" would skip changes that > would keep the number of lines, right? For the history of a project > that keeps track of source code, such a "feature" would not be > useful, but I can see a complaint by somebody who may want to keep > track of a "list of things" one-item-per-line, if we had been > allowing an empty string. It would be a regression for such a niche > user. I actually just ran a `git grep -e ''` to see what it does, and it does indeed match every line, so presumably `git log -G` would do so as well. I do see your argument that this could be useful for a limited number of use cases, but as someone who often keeps track of lists of things in text files and therefore could be a target for that feature, I still feel like this would be very much a corner case. > Luckily, since we have stopped with a "BUG", we do not have to worry > about backward compatibility in this case ;-) I agree. The good news is that we haven't broken anyone's workflow, unless their workflow involves trying to trigger bugs. > So I'd say that it may be a bit premature for us to declare > "anything useful", I am perfectly fine with the patch given here. > If somebody who wants to maintain a text file, one-item-per-line > that keeps track of a list of things to omit commits that do not > change the number of items, they can drop "&& !*arg" part, tweak the > message and add their own tests, once this fix lands and the dust > settles. Exactly. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that there are lots of users who will try new things, and I'm sure we'll get a report here or elsewhere that they'd like to add this feature if there's actually interest. Fortunately, I expect that it shouldn't be too hard to add such a feature. -- brian m. carlson (they/them or he/him) Toronto, Ontario, CA
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