Re: [PATCHv2 4/5] branch: introduce --list option

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Thu, Sep 08, 2011 at 02:03:52PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> Hasn't 'git branch -v' meant listing in verbose mode for a long enough
> time that changing it now would mean a moderately major regression?
> 
> At least my copy of v1.7.0 seems to list with "git branch -v".

No, it will mean the same thing as in v1.7.0; it is not the "-v" which
does it, but the lack of non-option arguments.

Right now, "-v" just means "if we are listing, do it verbosely". And if
you don't specify any non-option arguments, it means "list". So right
now:

  git branch        ;# list
  git branch -v     ;# list verbosely
  git branch -v foo ;# create branch 'foo', -v does nothing

Michael's proposal was:

  git branch -v foo ;# assume verbose list, interpret 'foo' as pattern

which is actually a regression, albeit one that probably doesn't matter
(because "-v" didn't ever do anything with a non-option argument).

Whereas mine is:

  git branch -v foo ;# create branch 'foo' verbosely

Which happens to do exactly the same thing as the current behavior,
because there are no verbose messages to add to "git branch". But it
leaves the door open to adding them in the future (and it's consistent
with "git branch -m -v" and "git branch -d -v", both of which could use
"-v" to do their operations more verbosely).

-Peff