Re: Improving the git remote command

[David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 01:33:12PM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 10:24:35AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> 
> > Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
> > 
> > > ... But we are left with three options:
> > >
> > >   1. Add "git remote list" with verbose output. This is bad because it
> > >      differs gratuitously from "git remote".
> > >
> > >   2. Add "git remote list" with non-verbose output. This is good because
> > >      it means "git remote" is just a shortcut for "git remote list",
> > >      which is consistent with other parts of git. But it is potentially
> > >      bad if "-v" is a better output format.
> > >
> > >   3. Add "git remote list" with verbose output, and tweak "git remote"
> > >      to match. This is bad because it breaks backwards compatibility.
> > >
> > > The proposal is for (1). I think we agree that (3) is out. The question
> > > is whether (1) or (2) is the least bad.
> > 
> > I would imagine that those who want list of remotes programatically
> > would read from "git config" output and it would be with less
> > friction to change the output from "git remote", a command that is
> > solely to cater to end-user humans, to suit people's needs, so I am
> > not sure if (3) is immediately "out".
> 
> Yeah, I touched on that earlier. I would personally consider "git
> remote" to be a porcelain, and "git config" to be the appropriate
> plumbing for accessing those values. However, it's a little tricky to
> robustly get the list of remotes with "git config". So I would not be
> surprised if scripts have used "git remote" to do the same thing (I know
> for a fact that some internal scripts at GitHub did this, though I
> recently cleaned them up so I do not have a vested interest either way
> at this point).
> 
> That does not mean those scripts are right and we cannot change things,
> but it may be a matter of practicality.

We have some internal scripts at Disney Animation that rely on "git remote"
output so I would vote for #3 personally as well.

I know that "git config" is porcelain, and I can get remote.(.*).url,
but that's not obvious and I highly doubt that anyone does that.

What if we said that "git remote list --porcelain" == "git remote"
and then just leave "git remote" output as-is so that we don't have to
have a flag day when we break people's scripts?

Those that want verbose output can use "git remote list".

> > Having said that, my preference is 
> > 
> >     0. Do nothing, but document the "default to listing" better if
> >        needed.
> > 
> > and then 2. above, and then 1.
> 
> Yeah, I'd agree with that.

Ditto.
-- 
David