Re: [PATCH 0/5] RFC: patterns for branch list

On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 09:55:37AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

As we use fnmatch() and not match_pathspec() for this pattern matching,
"git branch peff/" will not list all the topics under the peff/ hierarchy
(your example "git branch peff/\*" would be the way), but I would imagine
that we may someday want to update it to allow the leading path match
here. And at that point, distinction between

	git branch peff  ;# to create a "peff" branch
        git branch peff/ ;# to list "peff/" branches, as "peff/" itself is
        		 ;# an invalid branch name and your auto listing
                         ;# heuristic kicks in

while it might be very useful for experts, becomes too subtle and would
confuse new people. We should instead require an explicit -l/--list, and
not use the auto listing heuristics (it is fine for -v to imply -l).

Sorry, I'm atrociously behind on reviewing this topic. But FWIW, I
completely agree with this. Detecting invalid branch formats is much too
subtle and error prone, and we are better off making a short and
easy-to-type version of "--list".

-Peff