Re: Should `@` be really a valid git tag name?

On Fri, Sep 17, 2021 at 4:06 PM Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

Carlo Marcelo Arenas Belón [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

I was leaning towards something like that plus a Documentation update, but
noticed that the current behaviour was inconsistent, and the confusion
pointed out by Junio seems to indicate it is better if fully restricted.

That is a bad move, as existing repositories may have a ref with
such a name.

but if they do, it is currently "ambiguous" as you pointed out, and my
patch still allows the use of @ when it is not ambiguous :

  $ git branch @/1 @

so Stefano[1] is safe, and anyone that has such a ref is better of
renaming it anyway (which is something I agree we have to add code to
my patch to allow somehow)

If we tighten anything retroactively, we probably should forgid '@'
short-hand that stands for HEAD, I would think.

regardless of the merits of that feature, it has been in git since
~v1.8.4, so its removal will also be breaking the user experience
IMHO.

Carlo

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/git/520BC017.7050907@gmail.com/ (local)