Re: obnoxious CLI complaints

[John Tapsell <johnflux@gmail.com>]

2009/9/13 Dmitry Potapov <dpotapov@gmail.com>:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 01:21:43AM +0300, John Tapsell wrote:
>>
>> Because I wouldn't call this just a few keystrokes to do the common case:
>>
>>     git archive --format=tar --prefix=HEAD/ HEAD | gzip > head.tar.gz
>>
>> I honestly don't understand the backlash against Brenden's point that
>> this could be made a bit simpler.
>
> You do not have to specify '--format=tar', because it is default. The
> prefix name is a matter of one's preferences. Brenden wanted it to be
> $myproject, while I have used three different versions. Now, you suggest
> some other. IMHO, having it empty by default makes much more sense when
> there is no obvious value on what most would agree. Finally, 'HEAD' is
> required, because we do not want 'git archive' being run without any
> parameter to write a binary file to the terminal. (Yes, it is foolish to
> run command that you do not know to see what it does, but some people do
> that, and we want all commands to be safe). BTW, I wonder whether use of
> HEAD is really common with git-archive. Normally, you would archive a
> tagged release, and then it is better to use the tag name to be sure
> that you have archived the right thing.

Ah, the manpage examples specifically give the --format=tar though.

Why not have  --format=tgz  then or something?  Or better yet, give
the filename on the command line and detect the format from the file
extension.