From 15364d2a3cef397442033a3fec27d57007ca1c51 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Jeff King Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 14:26:50 -0400 Subject: [PATCH] docs: document caveats of rev-list's object-name output At first glance, the names given by "rev-list --objects" seem like a good way to see which paths are present in a set of commits. But there are some subtle gotchas there. We do not document the format of the names at all, so let's do so, along with warning of these problems. I intentionally did not document the exact format of the names here, as I don't think it's something we want people to rely on (though I doubt in practice that we'd change it at this point). Though all of this is historically tied to "--objects", these days we have a separate "--object-names" flag which can turn the names off or on. So I put the detailed documentation there, but added a note from --objects (which did not otherwise mention the names at all, even though they are on by default). Signed-off-by: Jeff King Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano --- Documentation/rev-list-options.txt | 9 +++++++-- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt b/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt index 1837509566..43f293e701 100644 --- a/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt +++ b/Documentation/rev-list-options.txt @@ -882,7 +882,7 @@ ifdef::git-rev-list[] Print the object IDs of any object referenced by the listed commits. `--objects foo ^bar` thus means ``send me all object IDs which I need to download if I have the commit - object _bar_ but not _foo_''. + object _bar_ but not _foo_''. See also `--object-names` below. --in-commit-order:: Print tree and blob ids in order of the commits. The tree @@ -912,7 +912,12 @@ ifdef::git-rev-list[] --object-names:: Only useful with `--objects`; print the names of the object IDs - that are found. This is the default behavior. + that are found. This is the default behavior. Note that the + "name" of each object is ambiguous, and mostly intended as a + hint for packing objects. In particular: no distinction is made between + the names of tags, trees, and blobs; path names may be modified + to remove newlines; and if an object would appear multiple times + with different names, only one name is shown. --no-object-names:: Only useful with `--objects`; does not print the names of the object