Re: [GSoC][RFC PATCH v4 3/5] builtin/refs: add list subcommand

[Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com>]

On 01/08/2025 18:14, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Phillip Wood <phillip.wood123@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> It is confusing that refs/heads does a prefix match but refs/heads/m
>> does not (unless there is a hierarchy boundary after the m).
> 
> And refs/hea would not show branches, for the same reason.  It is
> what "anchored at hierarchy boundary" in the message you are
> responding to means.  In other words, it is not a simple textual
> prefix match.

The last sentence sums up why I find it confusing - it is not possible 
to tell from the pattern what sort of match will be returned. If a 
script wants to query some property of a ref it either has to know it 
exists (which is racy but probably not a practical problem most of the 
time) or it has to include %(refname) in the format argument and check 
that it matches the ref in the query string. A script can force a prefix 
match by adding a trailing slash but there is no way to force an exact 
match.

Thanks

Phillip