Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] config: add options to list only variable names

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

SZEDER Gábor [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

@@ -16,11 +16,12 @@ SYNOPSIS
 'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-all name [value_regex]
 'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-regexp name_regex [value_regex]
 'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-urlmatch name URL
+'git config' [<file-option>] [-z|--null] --get-name-regexp name_regex

...

At first I wondered why --get-name-regexp is needed, as (purely from
the syntactic level) it appeared at the first glance the existing
'--get-regexp' without 'value_regex' may be sufficient, until I read
this:

quoted

+--get-name-regexp::
+     Like --get-regexp, but shows only matching variable names, not its
+     values.

which makes it clear why it is needed.  The distinction is purely
about the output, i.e. the values are omitted.

If the distinction is purely about the output, then it seems logical
to add only an output related option, like the --name-only option I
suggested, and not 2 new modes (--get-name-regexp and --list-names).

Doesn't it look like git config already has too many modes?

But then it makes me wonder why --get-name-regexp shouldn't
optionally accept value_regex like --get-regexp does, allowing you
to say "list the variables that match this pattern whose values
match this other pattern".  I know it may be a feature that is
unnecessary for your purpose, but from a cursory look of the patch
text, you do not seem to be doing anything different between
get-regexp and get-name-regexp codepaths other than flipping
omit_values bit on, so it could be that the feature is already
supported but forgot to document it, perhaps?

This also suggests that it might be more logical to only add an option
called --name-only or --omit-values that would map directly to the
omit_values bit in the code.