Re: [PATCH 1/3] ls-tree: make <tree-ish> optional

[Joshua Nelson <jyn514@gmail.com>]

Agreed, ls-tree when called with no arguments was the main use case I
wrote this for; the rest was mostly because other commands allow greater
ambiguity and I wanted to make the syntax consistent.

I don't mind doing this for rev-list as well if that's a useful feature.


On 07/03/2018 06:55 PM, Elijah Newren wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 3, 2018 at 3:05 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> On Mon, Jul 2, 2018 at 8:58 PM, Joshua Nelson <jyn514@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> use syntax similar to `git-checkout` to make <tree-ish> optional for
>>>> `ls-tree`. if <tree-ish> is omitted, default to HEAD. infer arguments as
>>>> follows:
>>>>
>>>> 1. if args start with --
>>>>         assume <tree-ish> to be HEAD
>>>> 2. if exactly one arg precedes --, treat the argument as <tree-ish>
>>>> 3. if more than one arg precedes --, exit with an error
>>>> 4. if -- is not in args
>>>>         a) if args[0] is a valid <tree-ish> object, treat is as such
>>>>         b) else, assume <tree-ish> to be HEAD
>>>>
>>>> in all cases, every argument besides <tree-ish> is treated as a <path>
>>> Cool, this is something I've wanted a few times.
>> Hmph, is it, and why?
> Default <tree-ish> of HEAD when nothing is specified is certainly
> something I wanted.  To be honest, I wanted it for rev-list too.
> Despite dozens if not hundreds of times of typing 'git ls-tree -r' or
> 'git rev-list' expecting to see the results for HEAD (just as git log
> does), and getting git's error message reminding me that I need to
> specify HEAD, I can't seem to get it through my head to remember that
> I need to specify it.
>
>> I'd prefer *not* to have such a DWIM in a command like ls-tree, aka
>> plumbing commands, where predictability is worth 1000 times more
>> than ease of typing.
> Fair enough.  However, what if no <tree-ish> or <path> are specified,
> though -- would you be okay with the HEAD being assumed instead of
> erroring out in that case?