Re: [PATCH/RFC] Add [] as an alias for a reference to the empty tree

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:51:05AM +0200, Sverre Rabbelier wrote:

On Mon, May 10, 2010 at 11:20, Jeff King [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

quoted

However, if INDEX, WORKTREE and EMPTY are preferred as syntactic sugar
tokes, then that is fine by me.

Must it be ALL CAPS? In Mercurial the fairly elegant 'nil' is used for
the empty commit, why can't we do the same?

[Please watch your quoting, which is a bit misleading there].

I think the intent was that because they clash in the normal refs
namespace, we would set them apart with caps (and we have already
sort-of claimed the all-caps namespace with things like HEAD,
FETCH_HEAD, etc).

quoted

So certainly if you want to do EMPTY, I wouldn't let the lack of the
other two hold you back. The only reason they are related at all is that
they would probably share a syntax, if the other two ever even get
implemented.

I still don't see the point in having INDEX and WORKTREE, especially
since they're so CAPSY. Almost as if they're supposed to be
environment variables.

The point was to make a more obvious and verbose alternative for people
who find "git diff" a little confusing. E.g.:

  # diff index to working tree
  # (now)
  git diff
  # (verbose)
  git diff INDEX..WORKTREE

  # diff HEAD to index
  # (now)
  git diff --cached
  # (verbose)
  git diff HEAD..INDEX

  # diff HEAD to working tree
  # (now)
  git diff HEAD
  # (verbose)
  git diff HEAD..WORKTREE

I think the original proposal is from this post-GitTogether 2008 thread:

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/99376/focus=100729

-Peff