Re: [PATCH 3/4] cat-file: add --batch-disk-sizes option

[Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>]

Duy Nguyen wrote:
> Ram, are you still interested in the awesome branch series?

Yep, but it got stalled due to lack of reviewer-interest :/

I'm a bit under the weather at the moment, but it's good to see that
you're back: let's finish this soon.

>>> Perhaps we need
>>>
>>>   git cat-file --batch-format="%(disk-size) %(object)"
>>>
>>> or similar.
>
> This is what I wanted to do with the in for-each-ref's pretty
> formatting [1]. I used to hack cat-file --batch to extract info I
> needed for experimenting with various pack index extensions. If you
> are not in hurry, maybe we can introduce something similar to your
> syntax, but applicable for all for-each-ref, branch and log family.

I'm still quite confused about this "grand plan".  We have short
commit-specific format specifiers that don't work with refs, among
several other quirks in [1].  I personally think we should absolutely
stay away from short format-specifiers (like %H, %f, %e; we'll soon
run out of letters, and nobody can tell what they are without the
documentation anyway) for the new options, and just start adding new
long-form ones as and when they are necessary.  I think refname:short,
upstream:track, upstream:trackshort are very sensible choices, and
that we should continue along that line.  I'm fine with
format-specifiers having meanings only in certain contexts as long as
we document it properly (how can we possibly get %(refname) to mean
something sensible in cat-file?).

As far as this series is concerned, I think Peff can implement %H and
%(object:[disk-]size) locally without worrying about code-sharing or
waiting for us.  Then, after the for-each-ref-pretty thing matures, we
can just replace the code underneath.