[GSoC microproject help] Allow "-" as a short-hand for "@{-1}" in more places

[GSoC microproject help] Allow "-" as a short-hand for "@{-1}" in more places

[Sundararajan R]

Hi All,

I am a sophomore at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and am a GSoC 
aspirant for git. Although I have been using git from a long time, this is 
the first occasion when I have picked up reading its source code. Can 
somebody please help me by telling me how to start off with the above 
mentioned microproject?

Thank you very much.

Re: [GSoC microproject help] Allow "-" as a short-hand for "@{-1}" in more places

[Junio C Hamano]

Sundararajan R <dyoucme@gmail.com> writes:

> Although I have been using git from a long time, this is 
> the first occasion when I have picked up reading its source code. Can 
> somebody please help me by telling me how to start off with the above 
> mentioned microproject?

A good place to start on the specific coding side is to see how
existing changes for the same objective were done.

Hints:

  Does reading "git log --grep='@{-1}'" help you?  When was @{-1}
  introduced, and how is it connected to the "-" short-hand that is
  exposed to the end-user by what mechanism in commits surrounding
  the one that introduces the @{-1} mechanism?

  Does reading "git grep '@{-1}'" help you?  Where does it appear?
  What code interprets it to find the last branch before you
  switched and how?  Who calls that code?  Is there something that
  turns a user-supplied "-" into "@{-1}" before calling that code?
  What did that caller looked like before it started noticing "-"?
  Does running "git blame -L<line range>" on that caller help you to
  find out which commit made the change, and does running "git show"
  on that commit help you understand how the change was done?

At the same time, GSoC is about working _with_ the development
community, so another good place to start (you need to start on both
fronts) is to subscribe and read this mailing list and also to dig
the list archive (hint: the search interface of gmane often let you
find gems) to understand how other people propose new changes and
how their changes are discussed, reviewed and polished.  You'll be
part of that kind of exchanges yourself once you become part of the
project.

Welcome.

Re: [GSoC microproject help] Allow "-" as a short-hand for "@{-1}" in more places

[Akshay Aurora]

Hi Sundararajan,

Welcome to Git Community.

You need to look for commands dealing with branches, and allow  '-' as
shorthand for @{-1}.

You can look at patches already sent for this microproject. One of the
students has already started working on git reset command [0].

Junio, has raised some key issues you'll need to tackle on that
thread. Hopefully it should get you started.

Make sure the existing tests pass after making changes. You might also
need to add a new test case for your microproject.

[0] - http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/264688

On Sat, Mar 7, 2015 at 1:35 AM, Sundararajan R <dyoucme@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I am a sophomore at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur and am a GSoC
> aspirant for git. Although I have been using git from a long time, this is
> the first occasion when I have picked up reading its source code. Can
> somebody please help me by telling me how to start off with the above
> mentioned microproject?
>
> Thank you very much.
>
> --
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-- 
AA