Re: [PATCH] git-grep: --and to combine patterns with and instead of or

[Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>]

Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> writes:

> Because --near needs an expression it check context for (context is for
> found match of lhs expression). So
>
>   -e foo --near \( -e A --or -e B \)
>
> means lines containing foo and either A or B in the context _for "foo"_.

The syntax and semantics of --near I suggested (and you are
following) and what Matthias discusses are different and I think
that is why you two are talking past each other.

What I originally suggested is that you can (syntactically)
replace --near with --and.  That is, the LHS is the match and
RHS is "the LHS must match, but in addition RHS must match but
unlike --and RHS does not have to be exactly on the same line
but it is OK if it is a line somewhere nearby".

The --near Matthias talk about is syntactically not like --and
but more like --not.  It takes a condition for a line after
that, and loosens it to cover nearby lines.  So "-e A"
means "the line must have A on it" but "--near -e A" means "the
line must be nearby a line that satisfies `-e A'".

Matthias's "--near EXP" is spelled as "-e '' --near EXP" (the
first one is always true) with our syntax, in other words.

I do not think either of these semantics is invalid; they are
just different.  The version by Matthias is more general and
more expressive.