Re: More git status --porcelain lossage

On Fri, Apr 09, 2010 at 03:06:01PM -0400, Eric Raymond wrote:

A format properly designed for script parseability should use even use
whitespace as a field separator.

Why?

Because if you do that, front ends *will* do field analysis using a
naive split-on-whitespace operation.  And then...someday...someone
will try to run one of these of these on a volume from a system where
filenames contain embedded whitespace.  Like Mac OS X or Windows.

Yes, that is why almost every scriptable git interface supports a "-z"
variant with NUL termination.

Conclusion: As it is presently, git status --porcelain format is
irretrievably botched.  You need a field separator that's musch less
likely to land in a filename, like '|' - and to warn in the documentation
that careful front ends must check for and ignore '\|'.

We already quote correctly, so it is only sloppy parsers that will be in
trouble. Yes, space is more common than "|", but sloppy is sloppy. Parse
it right, or use "-z".

-Peff