Re: [PATCH] Add config variable besides env variable to squelch "do-not-use" warning.

On Tue, Jun 15, 2021 at 9:23 PM Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

"Daniel Höpfl via GitGitGadget"  [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

From: =?UTF-8?q?Daniel=20H=C3=B6pfl?= <redacted>

In addition to the environment variable FILTER_BRANCH_SQUELCH_WARNING,
the git config filter-branch.squelchWarning is checked to see if the
usage warning should be squelched.

Thanks for trying to improve the system.

A configuration variable that is used to squelch warning messages
related to migration and transition typically lives under advice.*
hierarchy, so something ike "advice.weanOffOfFilterBranch" may be a
more appropriate name for this new knob.

Having said that.

As this message with environment as an escape hatch was added as a
way to strongly discourage users from keep using the command, I am
fairly negative to a change that adds yet another way to make it
easier to keep using it.

Elijah, who did 9df53c5d (Recommend git-filter-repo instead of
git-filter-branch, 2019-09-04), added to CC list for input.

Yeah, I generally would like to discourage it but...

Back when we put this strong discouragement and escape hatch in, I
wasn't aware of anything that could be done in filter-branch that was
hard to do in filter-repo.  However, since then, a user reported they
wanted to re-sign commits after a rewrite.  Since fast-import does not
(currently) provide a way to sign commits, and filter-repo is built on
top of fast-export and fast-import, this makes it rather difficult for
filter-repo to do.  (I think it still can, given all the shenanigans I
did to create filter-branch-ish as a rewrite of filter-branch on top
of filter-repo, but that comes with nearly all the same caveats as
filter-branch if used directly, and is a huge amount of code to lift
to try to use outside of filter-branch-ish.)

Since there's a valid use for filter-branch (even if rare) that isn't
readily done in filter-repo, adding the option Daniel requests makes
sense.