On 2008-06-02 22:51:33 -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Karl Hasselström <kha@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > Giving the old sha1 is already optional when changing a ref, and > > it's quite handy when running update-ref manually. So make it > > optional for deleting a ref too. > > "Handy" is not a very good reason when talking about plumbing > command like update-ref that takes an extra parameter for safety of > the last step in read, operate, verify-and-update sequence. > > Although it is not a reason _bad enough_ to make your patch a bad > idea, perhaps you should rethink the problem at the same time? > Whatever you are trying to do cannot be done without manually > invoking update-ref directly by the end user, perhaps that needs to > be addressed? I need this from time to time when experimenting with StGit -- or, more precisely, when cleaning up afterwards in case it didn't go so well. Packed refs means I can't safely just edit/delete files under .git/refs anymore, so I use update-ref instead. And having to use the safety belt every time is just plain tedious. I'd say this is a perfect example of when using the plumbing by hand is really what you want. (In this kind of situation, branch -D often doesn't work since my ref isn't under refs/heads, and besides I really don't want any of it's smarts right then -- I want to delete a ref, nothing more.) Better suggestions welcome, of course. -- Karl Hasselström, kha@xxxxxxxxxxx www.treskal.com/kalle -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html