Re: [RFC] get_sha1() shorthands for blob/tree objects

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>]

On Wed, 19 Apr 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> writes:
> 
> > On Tue, 18 Apr 2006, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> >> 
> >> A small fry in the ointment.  What should the parts that are
> >> output with --name-only say for such a diff?
> >
> > I have no idea, I have to say ;)
> 
> Another small one ;-).  Bare blobs do not have modes, so diffcore
> needs to be told "do not bother comparing mode for this pair".

True, but sad.

We clearly _do_ have the mode when we look it up using the tree:name 
shorthand, so it's a bit sad that we drop it on the floor like that.

We could do something like with the "name" part - squirrel the mode away 
for users that could use it, and use the special mode of 0 as "unknown" 
for when somebody really does give a pure SHA1 number (short or full).

But I suspect most people simply don't care, so dropping the mode might 
just be the right thing to do. Especially if we do know that we _could_ 
get the mode if people really really care and complain some day in the 
future..

(The logic being: 640kB really _is_ enough for everybody, if you just know 
that you can extend on it in the future without undue pain when people 
complain)

			Linus