Re: ref name troubles, was Re: [PATCH v2] Introduce %<branch> as shortcut to the tracked branch

[Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net>]

Johannes Schindelin venit, vidit, dixit 20.03.2009 12:57:
> Hi,
> 
> On Fri, 20 Mar 2009, Petr Baudis wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 12:46:19PM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>
>>> On Fri, 20 Mar 2009, Petr Baudis wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 10:30:29AM +0100, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
>>>>> On Thu, 19 Mar 2009, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> I think you are right.  It is just "git branch" and perhaps "git
>>>>>> update-ref" are too loose in enforcing what can be created.
>>>>>
>>>>> "git branch" I agree with, but not "git update-ref".  As plumbing, the 
>>>>> latter should be much more allowing, feeding rope aplenty (but also 
>>>>> allowing cool tricks we do not think about yet).
>>>>
>>>> We shouldn't allow creating insane ref names even with update-ref. That
>>>> way porcelains cannot rely on update-ref to sanity check the user's
>>>> crap. At most, maybe you might want to bypass this check with some force
>>>> switch, though I really can't quite imagine why.
>>>
>>> You really cannot imagine?  You, the author of filter-branch?  People _do_ 
>>> have fscked-up repositories, but they get really angry when they cannot 
>>> use rebase or filter-branch on them.
>>
>> They can rename the ref as the first step of a cleanup, can't they?
> 
> Well, of course, we can make life hard on everybody.  That is quite 
> possible.
> 
> But then, we can be nice, and at the same time fix the problem _properly_.
> 
> IMHO a _warning_ should be the best thing.
> 
> But all this does not solve _my_ problem: I'd like something as easy to 
> write as %next, but as unlikely to be used in existing refs as @{..}.

Do we have ^ as a prefix yet?
Neither the suffix (commit^) nor the infix (commit^{type}) allow an
empty commit (for HEAD) - which might be nice, though. So, ^ as a prefix
is free, even without any specifier after.

Also, I don't think people would use @@ much in branch names.

Michael