From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] fast-import: add 'ls' command
Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 19:36:43 -0600
Message-ID: <20110212013643.GB24736@elie>
References: <20110211224339.GA9973@elie>
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Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, David Barr <david.barr@cordelta.com>,
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	Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>,
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To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
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Jonathan Nieder wrote:

> It is probably be less confusing to use "missing" and let frontends
> handle that rather shielding the frontend from reality.  Like so:
                    ^

This should say "rather than", as in: "It is confusing to lie to the
frontend; let's not do that."

Side note: this adds some complication to frontends.  For example,
to copy some/path from the commit called :5, without this change,
one could do

	echo 'ls :5 some/path'
	read -r mode type dataref path
	echo "M $mode $dataref $path"

but now one would have to do:

	echo 'ls :5 some/path'
	read -r mode rest
	case $mode in
	missing)
		echo "D some/path"
		;;
	*)
		dataref=${rest#* }
		echo "M $mode $dataref some/path"
		;;
	esac

The former is simpler; the latter is more explicit and probably less
confusing.

Sorry for the nonsense.
Jonathan