Re: [WIP PATCH 0/5] support --exclude for diff/log commands

[Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy <pclouds@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 6:59 AM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> Let's clarify by dumping my understanding of what we aim to achieve.
>
> ...
>
> Both the ":/<path>" proposal (or your ":<path>" proposal) changes only a
> very small part of the above, namely, "each prefixed with '<prefix>'" is
> changed to if the element in original pathspec has the magic colon prefix,
> the magic is stripped away, and the remainder becomes the element in the
> resulting pathspec array without additional <prefix> in front.

Correct.

> If Nguyen's proposal is to also match ":/<path>" (or ":<path>") literally,
> that part should be scrapped.  If somebody wants to match such an unusual
> path component, it can always be expressed by quoting it as a glob,
> i.e. "[:]/<path>" (or "[:]<path").

OK.

> I am slightly in favor of ":<path>" syntax (than ":/<path>"), but I do not
> care too deeply.  Either has the same problem that it will be confusing
> with existing and well-established syntax (the former would conflict with
> "name of the blob in the index", the latter with "name of the commit that
> match the regexp).

How about ":<path>" for root pathspecs, but reserve ':[^0-9A-Za-z]*'
for future use?

(on top of Michael's patch)

-- 8< --
diff --git a/setup.c b/setup.c
index ef55e5d..1ebe1d2 100644
--- a/setup.c
+++ b/setup.c
@@ -146,8 +146,13 @@ const char **get_pathspec(const char *prefix,
const char **pathspec)
 	while (*src) {
 		const char *p;

-		if ((*src)[0] == ':')
+		if ((*src)[0] == ':') {
+			const char *reserved = "~`!@#$%^&*()-_=+[{]}\\|;:'\",<.>/?";
+			if (strchr(reserved, (*src)[1]))
+				die("':%c' syntax is not supported. "
+				    "Quote it to match literally.", (*src)[1]);
 			p = prefix_path(NULL, 0, (*src)+1);
+		}
 		else
 			p = prefix_path(prefix, prefixlen, *src);
 		*(dst++) = p;
-- 8< --
-- 
Duy