Re: [PATCH/RFD 0/2] revision.c: --merges, --no-merges and --merges-only

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 01:22:20AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:
> 
> > From the ui perspective I'm somehow not a big fan of tri-state options
> > but can't give hard reasons why; maybe because they force you to use
> > option arguments.
> 
> But in this particular case, you cannot really hack it with two options
> that appear independent on surface but in reality are not. Logically, it
> is an enum <everything, non-merges, merges-only> and you can choose only
> one of them, and it is even worse from the UI perspective to use
> combination of two not-quite-independent options.
> 
> Also I have a hidden agenda to add "because we could" --show=octopus to
> the enum later perhaps only to my private edition ;-)

Yes, I read your other response to Michael and I think that makes the
most sense. In the most general form it is "--show=<num_parents>",
though I don't think there is really much point in values besides 0, 1,
2, or >2 (or combinations thereof, though again, probably only "this
particular value" or "any" is of interest).

So what you have said so far covers that, except for "--show=roots",
which I think would be a useful addition.

The over-engineer in me wants to have the general form
"--grep-by-parent-count=0,1" and "--show=no-merges" as a human-friendly
alias to that. But I can't think of a good reason to have the general
form, except for the sake of generalizing.

-Peff