Re: [PATCH] grep: --full-tree

Wincent Colaiuta [off-list ref] writes:

Oh, I wouldn't like that at all. I think it would be a very ugly UI
wart, because it would basically make Git behave differently than
every other command line tool that accepts paths. If it is to deviate
from the extremely widespread convention that paths starting with /
refer to absolute paths rooted at the root of the filesystem, then the
justification for it would need to be very strong indeed.

There are at least two flaws in that argument.

 - git does not accept paths (it lets you specify patterns that match,
   e.g. t/ to name ptahs under t/ directory).

 - "/pathspec" does follow the widespread convention that a string that
   begin with a "/" refer to a path rooted at the root _in the context_;
   the definition of root may or may not match the filesystem root.

   Think of things like <a href="/$path">Top</a>.  Does "/$path" mean at
   the root of filesystem?  No.

I am not married to the "git grep -e frotz /Documentation" notation, by
the way.  I just didn't think of a different notation that is equally
short, sweet and logical.  We could do //Documentation if it makes it more
distinct, but I do think it is worse than a single slash.