[PATCH 1/3] doc: reword -B option of diff into something sensible

[PATCH 1/3] doc: reword -B option of diff into something sensible

[Jean-Noël Avila]

The sentence seemed to miss a verb.

Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
---
 Documentation/diff-options.txt | 16 ++++++++--------
 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/diff-options.txt b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
index 09faee3b44..350d0a2fb0 100644
--- a/Documentation/diff-options.txt
+++ b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
@@ -452,14 +452,14 @@ endif::git-format-patch[]
 	create. This serves two purposes:
 +
 It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
-not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
-few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
-single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
-everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
-option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
-original should remain in the result for Git to consider it a total
-rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
-deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
+does not appear as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together
+with a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context,
+but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
+insertion of everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect
+of the -B option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than
+30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to consider it
+a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series
+of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
 +
 When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
 source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
-- 
2.24.0

[PATCH 2/3] doc: remove non pure ASCII characters

[Jean-Noël Avila]

Non ASCII characters may be handled by publishing chains, but right
now, nothing indicates the encoding of files. Moreover, non ASCII
source strings upset the localization toolchain.

Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
---
 Documentation/git-clone.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
index 34011c2940..2e8babe671 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
@@ -262,9 +262,9 @@ or `--mirror` is given)
 	All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
 
 --[no-]remote-submodules::
-	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule’s
+	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule's
 	remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather than the
-	superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
+	superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
 	`git submodule update`.
 
 --separate-git-dir=<git dir>::
-- 
2.24.0

Re: [PATCH 2/3] doc: remove non pure ASCII characters

[Junio C Hamano]

Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

> Non ASCII characters may be handled by publishing chains, but right
> now, nothing indicates the encoding of files. Moreover, non ASCII
> source strings upset the localization toolchain.
>
> Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-clone.txt | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Thanks.  I've always wanted to do this, but it is a bit surprising
that there is only this single instance?

> diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> index 34011c2940..2e8babe671 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> @@ -262,9 +262,9 @@ or `--mirror` is given)
>  	All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
>  
>  --[no-]remote-submodules::
> -	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule’s
> +	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule's
>  	remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather than the
> -	superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
> +	superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
>  	`git submodule update`.
>  
>  --separate-git-dir=<git dir>::

Re: [PATCH 2/3] doc: remove non pure ASCII characters

[Jean-Noël AVILA]

On Friday, 13 December 2019 20:53:31 CET Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:
> 
> > Non ASCII characters may be handled by publishing chains, but right
> > now, nothing indicates the encoding of files. Moreover, non ASCII
> > source strings upset the localization toolchain.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
> > ---
> >  Documentation/git-clone.txt | 4 ++--
> >  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> Thanks.  I've always wanted to do this, but it is a bit surprising
> that there is only this single instance?

There's another one in git-format-patch.txt, "Uwe Kleine-König diet", but this one does not seem to cause issues and it is difficult to replace it with ASCII only.

Should I try to find an alternative text?

> 
> > diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> > index 34011c2940..2e8babe671 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> > +++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
> > @@ -262,9 +262,9 @@ or `--mirror` is given)
> >  	All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
> >  
> >  --[no-]remote-submodules::
> > -	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule’s
> > +	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule's
> >  	remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather than the
> > -	superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
> > +	superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
> >  	`git submodule update`.
> >  
> >  --separate-git-dir=<git dir>::
> 

Re: [PATCH 2/3] doc: remove non pure ASCII characters

[Junio C Hamano]

Jean-Noël AVILA <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

>> Thanks.  I've always wanted to do this, but it is a bit surprising
>> that there is only this single instance?
>
> There's another one in git-format-patch.txt, "Uwe Kleine-König diet", but this one does not seem to cause issues and it is difficult to replace it with ASCII only.
>
> Should I try to find an alternative text?

No, let's keep names of people as-is, if they are not causing
issues.

What surprised me was the apparent lack of these "smarter"
apostrophes and quotes.

Thanks.

>
>> 
>> > diff --git a/Documentation/git-clone.txt b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
>> > index 34011c2940..2e8babe671 100644
>> > --- a/Documentation/git-clone.txt
>> > +++ b/Documentation/git-clone.txt
>> > @@ -262,9 +262,9 @@ or `--mirror` is given)
>> >  	All submodules which are cloned will be shallow with a depth of 1.
>> >  
>> >  --[no-]remote-submodules::
>> > -	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule’s
>> > +	All submodules which are cloned will use the status of the submodule's
>> >  	remote-tracking branch to update the submodule, rather than the
>> > -	superproject’s recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
>> > +	superproject's recorded SHA-1. Equivalent to passing `--remote` to
>> >  	`git submodule update`.
>> >  
>> >  --separate-git-dir=<git dir>::
>> 

[PATCH 3/3] doc: indent multi-line items in list

[Jean-Noël Avila]

Although Asciidoc allows to not indent following lines in a list item,
it is clearer and safer to follow the recommended rule.

Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
---
 Documentation/diff-format.txt       |   2 +-
 Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt | 257 ++++++++++++++--------------
 2 files changed, 134 insertions(+), 125 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/diff-format.txt b/Documentation/diff-format.txt
index 4d846d7346..fbbd410a84 100644
--- a/Documentation/diff-format.txt
+++ b/Documentation/diff-format.txt
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ Possible status letters are:
 - R: renaming of a file
 - T: change in the type of the file
 - U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can
-be committed)
+  be committed)
 - X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
 
 Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
diff --git a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
index 5876598852..ee889dd033 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
@@ -466,13 +466,13 @@ The performance of git-filter-branch is glacially slow; its design makes it
 impossible for a backward-compatible implementation to ever be fast:
 
 * In editing files, git-filter-branch by design checks out each and
-every commit as it existed in the original repo.  If your repo has 10\^5
-files and 10\^5 commits, but each commit only modifies 5 files, then
-git-filter-branch will make you do 10\^10 modifications, despite only
-having (at most) 5*10^5 unique blobs.
+  every commit as it existed in the original repo.  If your repo has
+  10\^5 files and 10\^5 commits, but each commit only modifies 5
+  files, then git-filter-branch will make you do 10\^10 modifications,
+  despite only having (at most) 5*10^5 unique blobs.
 
 * If you try and cheat and try to make git-filter-branch only work on
-files modified in a commit, then two things happen
+  files modified in a commit, then two things happen
 
   ** you run into problems with deletions whenever the user is simply
      trying to rename files (because attempting to delete files that
@@ -481,39 +481,41 @@ files modified in a commit, then two things happen
      user-provided shell)
 
   ** even if you succeed at the map-deletes-for-renames chicanery, you
-     still technically violate backward compatibility because users are
-     allowed to filter files in ways that depend upon topology of
-     commits instead of filtering solely based on file contents or names
-     (though this has not been observed in the wild).
+     still technically violate backward compatibility because users
+     are allowed to filter files in ways that depend upon topology of
+     commits instead of filtering solely based on file contents or
+     names (though this has not been observed in the wild).
 
 * Even if you don't need to edit files but only want to e.g. rename or
-remove some and thus can avoid checking out each file (i.e. you can use
---index-filter), you still are passing shell snippets for your filters.
-This means that for every commit, you have to have a prepared git repo
-where those filters can be run.  That's a significant setup.
-
-* Further, several additional files are created or updated per commit by
-git-filter-branch.  Some of these are for supporting the convenience
-functions provided by git-filter-branch (such as map()), while others
-are for keeping track of internal state (but could have also been
-accessed by user filters; one of git-filter-branch's regression tests
-does so).  This essentially amounts to using the filesystem as an IPC
-mechanism between git-filter-branch and the user-provided filters.
-Disks tend to be a slow IPC mechanism, and writing these files also
-effectively represents a forced synchronization point between separate
-processes that we hit with every commit.
+  remove some and thus can avoid checking out each file (i.e. you can
+  use --index-filter), you still are passing shell snippets for your
+  filters.  This means that for every commit, you have to have a
+  prepared git repo where those filters can be run.  That's a
+  significant setup.
+
+* Further, several additional files are created or updated per commit
+  by git-filter-branch.  Some of these are for supporting the
+  convenience functions provided by git-filter-branch (such as map()),
+  while others are for keeping track of internal state (but could have
+  also been accessed by user filters; one of git-filter-branch's
+  regression tests does so).  This essentially amounts to using the
+  filesystem as an IPC mechanism between git-filter-branch and the
+  user-provided filters.  Disks tend to be a slow IPC mechanism, and
+  writing these files also effectively represents a forced
+  synchronization point between separate processes that we hit with
+  every commit.
 
 * The user-provided shell commands will likely involve a pipeline of
-commands, resulting in the creation of many processes per commit.
-Creating and running another process takes a widely varying amount of
-time between operating systems, but on any platform it is very slow
-relative to invoking a function.
+  commands, resulting in the creation of many processes per commit.
+  Creating and running another process takes a widely varying amount
+  of time between operating systems, but on any platform it is very
+  slow relative to invoking a function.
 
 * git-filter-branch itself is written in shell, which is kind of slow.
-This is the one performance issue that could be backward-compatibly
-fixed, but compared to the above problems that are intrinsic to the
-design of git-filter-branch, the language of the tool itself is a
-relatively minor issue.
+  This is the one performance issue that could be backward-compatibly
+  fixed, but compared to the above problems that are intrinsic to the
+  design of git-filter-branch, the language of the tool itself is a
+  relatively minor issue.
 
   ** Side note: Unfortunately, people tend to fixate on the
      written-in-shell aspect and periodically ask if git-filter-branch
@@ -546,51 +548,55 @@ easily corrupt repos or end up with a mess worse than what you started
 with:
 
 * Someone can have a set of "working and tested filters" which they
-document or provide to a coworker, who then runs them on a different OS
-where the same commands are not working/tested (some examples in the
-git-filter-branch manpage are also affected by this).  BSD vs. GNU
-userland differences can really bite.  If lucky, error messages are
-spewed.  But just as likely, the commands either don't do the filtering
-requested, or silently corrupt by making some unwanted change.  The
-unwanted change may only affect a few commits, so it's not necessarily
-obvious either.  (The fact that problems won't necessarily be obvious
-means they are likely to go unnoticed until the rewritten history is in
-use for quite a while, at which point it's really hard to justify
-another flag-day for another rewrite.)
+  document or provide to a coworker, who then runs them on a different
+  OS where the same commands are not working/tested (some examples in
+  the git-filter-branch manpage are also affected by this).
+  BSD vs. GNU userland differences can really bite.  If lucky, error
+  messages are spewed.  But just as likely, the commands either don't
+  do the filtering requested, or silently corrupt by making some
+  unwanted change.  The unwanted change may only affect a few commits,
+  so it's not necessarily obvious either.  (The fact that problems
+  won't necessarily be obvious means they are likely to go unnoticed
+  until the rewritten history is in use for quite a while, at which
+  point it's really hard to justify another flag-day for another
+  rewrite.)
 
 * Filenames with spaces are often mishandled by shell snippets since
-they cause problems for shell pipelines.  Not everyone is familiar with
-find -print0, xargs -0, git-ls-files -z, etc.  Even people who are
-familiar with these may assume such flags are not relevant because
-someone else renamed any such files in their repo back before the person
-doing the filtering joined the project.  And often, even those familiar
-with handling arguments with spaces may not do so just because they
-aren't in the mindset of thinking about everything that could possibly
-go wrong.
-
-* Non-ascii filenames can be silently removed despite being in a desired
-directory.  Keeping only wanted paths is often done using pipelines like
-`git ls-files | grep -v ^WANTED_DIR/ | xargs git rm`.  ls-files will
-only quote filenames if needed, so folks may not notice that one of the
-files didn't match the regex (at least not until it's much too late).
-Yes, someone who knows about core.quotePath can avoid this (unless they
-have other special characters like \t, \n, or "), and people who use
-ls-files -z with something other than grep can avoid this, but that
-doesn't mean they will.
-
-* Similarly, when moving files around, one can find that filenames with
-non-ascii or special characters end up in a different directory, one
-that includes a double quote character.  (This is technically the same
-issue as above with quoting, but perhaps an interesting different way
-that it can and has manifested as a problem.)
+  they cause problems for shell pipelines.  Not everyone is familiar
+  with find -print0, xargs -0, git-ls-files -z, etc.  Even people who
+  are familiar with these may assume such flags are not relevant
+  because someone else renamed any such files in their repo back
+  before the person doing the filtering joined the project.  And
+  often, even those familiar with handling arguments with spaces may
+  not do so just because they aren't in the mindset of thinking about
+  everything that could possibly go wrong.
+
+* Non-ascii filenames can be silently removed despite being in a
+  desired directory.  Keeping only wanted paths is often done using
+  pipelines like `git ls-files | grep -v ^WANTED_DIR/ | xargs git rm`.
+  ls-files will only quote filenames if needed, so folks may not
+  notice that one of the files didn't match the regex (at least not
+  until it's much too late).  Yes, someone who knows about
+  core.quotePath can avoid this (unless they have other special
+  characters like \t, \n, or "), and people who use ls-files -z with
+  something other than grep can avoid this, but that doesn't mean they
+  will.
+
+* Similarly, when moving files around, one can find that filenames
+  with non-ascii or special characters end up in a different
+  directory, one that includes a double quote character.  (This is
+  technically the same issue as above with quoting, but perhaps an
+  interesting different way that it can and has manifested as a
+  problem.)
 
 * It's far too easy to accidentally mix up old and new history.  It's
-still possible with any tool, but git-filter-branch almost invites it.
-If lucky, the only downside is users getting frustrated that they don't
-know how to shrink their repo and remove the old stuff.  If unlucky,
-they merge old and new history and end up with multiple "copies" of each
-commit, some of which have unwanted or sensitive files and others which
-don't.  This comes about in multiple different ways:
+  still possible with any tool, but git-filter-branch almost
+  invites it.  If lucky, the only downside is users getting frustrated
+  that they don't know how to shrink their repo and remove the old
+  stuff.  If unlucky, they merge old and new history and end up with
+  multiple "copies" of each commit, some of which have unwanted or
+  sensitive files and others which don't.  This comes about in
+  multiple different ways:
 
   ** the default to only doing a partial history rewrite ('--all' is not
      the default and few examples show it)
@@ -609,8 +615,8 @@ don't.  This comes about in multiple different ways:
      "DISCUSSION" section of the git filter-repo manual page for more
      details.
 
-* Annotated tags can be accidentally converted to lightweight tags, due
-to either of two issues:
+* Annotated tags can be accidentally converted to lightweight tags,
+  due to either of two issues:
 
   ** Someone can do a history rewrite, realize they messed up, restore
      from the backups in refs/original/, and then redo their
@@ -623,71 +629,74 @@ to either of two issues:
      restored from refs/original/ in a previously botched rewrite).
 
 * Any commit messages that specify an encoding will become corrupted
-by the rewrite; git-filter-branch ignores the encoding, takes the original
-bytes, and feeds it to commit-tree without telling it the proper
-encoding.  (This happens whether or not --msg-filter is used.)
+  by the rewrite; git-filter-branch ignores the encoding, takes the
+  original bytes, and feeds it to commit-tree without telling it the
+  proper encoding.  (This happens whether or not --msg-filter is
+  used.)
 
 * Commit messages (even if they are all UTF-8) by default become
-corrupted due to not being updated -- any references to other commit
-hashes in commit messages will now refer to no-longer-extant commits.
-
-* There are no facilities for helping users find what unwanted crud they
-should delete, which means they are much more likely to have incomplete
-or partial cleanups that sometimes result in confusion and people
-wasting time trying to understand.  (For example, folks tend to just
-look for big files to delete instead of big directories or extensions,
-and once they do so, then sometime later folks using the new repository
-who are going through history will notice a build artifact directory
-that has some files but not others, or a cache of dependencies
-(node_modules or similar) which couldn't have ever been functional since
-it's missing some files.)
+  corrupted due to not being updated -- any references to other commit
+  hashes in commit messages will now refer to no-longer-extant
+  commits.
+
+* There are no facilities for helping users find what unwanted crud
+  they should delete, which means they are much more likely to have
+  incomplete or partial cleanups that sometimes result in confusion
+  and people wasting time trying to understand.  (For example, folks
+  tend to just look for big files to delete instead of big directories
+  or extensions, and once they do so, then sometime later folks using
+  the new repository who are going through history will notice a build
+  artifact directory that has some files but not others, or a cache of
+  dependencies (node_modules or similar) which couldn't have ever been
+  functional since it's missing some files.)
 
 * If --prune-empty isn't specified, then the filtering process can
-create hoards of confusing empty commits
+  create hoards of confusing empty commits
 
 * If --prune-empty is specified, then intentionally placed empty
-commits from before the filtering operation are also pruned instead of
-just pruning commits that became empty due to filtering rules.
+  commits from before the filtering operation are also pruned instead
+  of just pruning commits that became empty due to filtering rules.
 
 * If --prune empty is specified, sometimes empty commits are missed
-and left around anyway (a somewhat rare bug, but it happens...)
+  and left around anyway (a somewhat rare bug, but it happens...)
 
 * A minor issue, but users who have a goal to update all names and
-emails in a repository may be led to --env-filter which will only update
-authors and committers, missing taggers.
+  emails in a repository may be led to --env-filter which will only
+  update authors and committers, missing taggers.
 
 * If the user provides a --tag-name-filter that maps multiple tags to
-the same name, no warning or error is provided; git-filter-branch simply
-overwrites each tag in some undocumented pre-defined order resulting in
-only one tag at the end.  (A git-filter-branch regression test requires
-this surprising behavior.)
+  the same name, no warning or error is provided; git-filter-branch
+  simply overwrites each tag in some undocumented pre-defined order
+  resulting in only one tag at the end.  (A git-filter-branch
+  regression test requires this surprising behavior.)
 
 Also, the poor performance of git-filter-branch often leads to safety
 issues:
 
-* Coming up with the correct shell snippet to do the filtering you want
-is sometimes difficult unless you're just doing a trivial modification
-such as deleting a couple files.  Unfortunately, people often learn if
-the snippet is right or wrong by trying it out, but the rightness or
-wrongness can vary depending on special circumstances (spaces in
-filenames, non-ascii filenames, funny author names or emails, invalid
-timezones, presence of grafts or replace objects, etc.), meaning they
-may have to wait a long time, hit an error, then restart.  The
-performance of git-filter-branch is so bad that this cycle is painful,
-reducing the time available to carefully re-check (to say nothing about
-what it does to the patience of the person doing the rewrite even if
-they do technically have more time available).  This problem is extra
-compounded because errors from broken filters may not be shown for a
-long time and/or get lost in a sea of output.  Even worse, broken
-filters often just result in silent incorrect rewrites.
-
-* To top it all off, even when users finally find working commands, they
-naturally want to share them.  But they may be unaware that their repo
-didn't have some special cases that someone else's does.  So, when
-someone else with a different repository runs the same commands, they
-get hit by the problems above.  Or, the user just runs commands that
-really were vetted for special cases, but they run it on a different OS
-where it doesn't work, as noted above.
+* Coming up with the correct shell snippet to do the filtering you
+  want is sometimes difficult unless you're just doing a trivial
+  modification such as deleting a couple files.  Unfortunately, people
+  often learn if the snippet is right or wrong by trying it out, but
+  the rightness or wrongness can vary depending on special
+  circumstances (spaces in filenames, non-ascii filenames, funny
+  author names or emails, invalid timezones, presence of grafts or
+  replace objects, etc.), meaning they may have to wait a long time,
+  hit an error, then restart.  The performance of git-filter-branch is
+  so bad that this cycle is painful, reducing the time available to
+  carefully re-check (to say nothing about what it does to the
+  patience of the person doing the rewrite even if they do technically
+  have more time available).  This problem is extra compounded because
+  errors from broken filters may not be shown for a long time and/or
+  get lost in a sea of output.  Even worse, broken filters often just
+  result in silent incorrect rewrites.
+
+* To top it all off, even when users finally find working commands,
+  they naturally want to share them.  But they may be unaware that
+  their repo didn't have some special cases that someone else's does.
+  So, when someone else with a different repository runs the same
+  commands, they get hit by the problems above.  Or, the user just
+  runs commands that really were vetted for special cases, but they
+  run it on a different OS where it doesn't work, as noted above.
 
 GIT
 ---
-- 
2.24.0

Re: [PATCH 3/3] doc: indent multi-line items in list

[Junio C Hamano]

Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

> Although Asciidoc allows to not indent following lines in a list item,
> it is clearer and safer to follow the recommended rule.

Wonderful.  The result is much easier to read even without the
formatting, which is the point to use AsciiDoc inthe first place.

Thanks.

> Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
> ---
>  Documentation/diff-format.txt       |   2 +-
>  Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt | 257 ++++++++++++++--------------
>  2 files changed, 134 insertions(+), 125 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/diff-format.txt b/Documentation/diff-format.txt
> index 4d846d7346..fbbd410a84 100644
> --- a/Documentation/diff-format.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/diff-format.txt
> @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ Possible status letters are:
>  - R: renaming of a file
>  - T: change in the type of the file
>  - U: file is unmerged (you must complete the merge before it can
> -be committed)
> +  be committed)
>  - X: "unknown" change type (most probably a bug, please report it)
>  
>  Status letters C and R are always followed by a score (denoting the
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
> index 5876598852..ee889dd033 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-filter-branch.txt
> @@ -466,13 +466,13 @@ The performance of git-filter-branch is glacially slow; its design makes it
>  impossible for a backward-compatible implementation to ever be fast:
>  
>  * In editing files, git-filter-branch by design checks out each and
> -every commit as it existed in the original repo.  If your repo has 10\^5
> -files and 10\^5 commits, but each commit only modifies 5 files, then
> -git-filter-branch will make you do 10\^10 modifications, despite only
> -having (at most) 5*10^5 unique blobs.
> +  every commit as it existed in the original repo.  If your repo has
> +  10\^5 files and 10\^5 commits, but each commit only modifies 5
> +  files, then git-filter-branch will make you do 10\^10 modifications,
> +  despite only having (at most) 5*10^5 unique blobs.
>  
>  * If you try and cheat and try to make git-filter-branch only work on
> -files modified in a commit, then two things happen
> +  files modified in a commit, then two things happen
>  
>    ** you run into problems with deletions whenever the user is simply
>       trying to rename files (because attempting to delete files that
> @@ -481,39 +481,41 @@ files modified in a commit, then two things happen
>       user-provided shell)
>  
>    ** even if you succeed at the map-deletes-for-renames chicanery, you
> -     still technically violate backward compatibility because users are
> -     allowed to filter files in ways that depend upon topology of
> -     commits instead of filtering solely based on file contents or names
> -     (though this has not been observed in the wild).
> +     still technically violate backward compatibility because users
> +     are allowed to filter files in ways that depend upon topology of
> +     commits instead of filtering solely based on file contents or
> +     names (though this has not been observed in the wild).
>  
>  * Even if you don't need to edit files but only want to e.g. rename or
> -remove some and thus can avoid checking out each file (i.e. you can use
> ---index-filter), you still are passing shell snippets for your filters.
> -This means that for every commit, you have to have a prepared git repo
> -where those filters can be run.  That's a significant setup.
> -
> -* Further, several additional files are created or updated per commit by
> -git-filter-branch.  Some of these are for supporting the convenience
> -functions provided by git-filter-branch (such as map()), while others
> -are for keeping track of internal state (but could have also been
> -accessed by user filters; one of git-filter-branch's regression tests
> -does so).  This essentially amounts to using the filesystem as an IPC
> -mechanism between git-filter-branch and the user-provided filters.
> -Disks tend to be a slow IPC mechanism, and writing these files also
> -effectively represents a forced synchronization point between separate
> -processes that we hit with every commit.
> +  remove some and thus can avoid checking out each file (i.e. you can
> +  use --index-filter), you still are passing shell snippets for your
> +  filters.  This means that for every commit, you have to have a
> +  prepared git repo where those filters can be run.  That's a
> +  significant setup.
> +
> +* Further, several additional files are created or updated per commit
> +  by git-filter-branch.  Some of these are for supporting the
> +  convenience functions provided by git-filter-branch (such as map()),
> +  while others are for keeping track of internal state (but could have
> +  also been accessed by user filters; one of git-filter-branch's
> +  regression tests does so).  This essentially amounts to using the
> +  filesystem as an IPC mechanism between git-filter-branch and the
> +  user-provided filters.  Disks tend to be a slow IPC mechanism, and
> +  writing these files also effectively represents a forced
> +  synchronization point between separate processes that we hit with
> +  every commit.
>  
>  * The user-provided shell commands will likely involve a pipeline of
> -commands, resulting in the creation of many processes per commit.
> -Creating and running another process takes a widely varying amount of
> -time between operating systems, but on any platform it is very slow
> -relative to invoking a function.
> +  commands, resulting in the creation of many processes per commit.
> +  Creating and running another process takes a widely varying amount
> +  of time between operating systems, but on any platform it is very
> +  slow relative to invoking a function.
>  
>  * git-filter-branch itself is written in shell, which is kind of slow.
> -This is the one performance issue that could be backward-compatibly
> -fixed, but compared to the above problems that are intrinsic to the
> -design of git-filter-branch, the language of the tool itself is a
> -relatively minor issue.
> +  This is the one performance issue that could be backward-compatibly
> +  fixed, but compared to the above problems that are intrinsic to the
> +  design of git-filter-branch, the language of the tool itself is a
> +  relatively minor issue.
>  
>    ** Side note: Unfortunately, people tend to fixate on the
>       written-in-shell aspect and periodically ask if git-filter-branch
> @@ -546,51 +548,55 @@ easily corrupt repos or end up with a mess worse than what you started
>  with:
>  
>  * Someone can have a set of "working and tested filters" which they
> -document or provide to a coworker, who then runs them on a different OS
> -where the same commands are not working/tested (some examples in the
> -git-filter-branch manpage are also affected by this).  BSD vs. GNU
> -userland differences can really bite.  If lucky, error messages are
> -spewed.  But just as likely, the commands either don't do the filtering
> -requested, or silently corrupt by making some unwanted change.  The
> -unwanted change may only affect a few commits, so it's not necessarily
> -obvious either.  (The fact that problems won't necessarily be obvious
> -means they are likely to go unnoticed until the rewritten history is in
> -use for quite a while, at which point it's really hard to justify
> -another flag-day for another rewrite.)
> +  document or provide to a coworker, who then runs them on a different
> +  OS where the same commands are not working/tested (some examples in
> +  the git-filter-branch manpage are also affected by this).
> +  BSD vs. GNU userland differences can really bite.  If lucky, error
> +  messages are spewed.  But just as likely, the commands either don't
> +  do the filtering requested, or silently corrupt by making some
> +  unwanted change.  The unwanted change may only affect a few commits,
> +  so it's not necessarily obvious either.  (The fact that problems
> +  won't necessarily be obvious means they are likely to go unnoticed
> +  until the rewritten history is in use for quite a while, at which
> +  point it's really hard to justify another flag-day for another
> +  rewrite.)
>  
>  * Filenames with spaces are often mishandled by shell snippets since
> -they cause problems for shell pipelines.  Not everyone is familiar with
> -find -print0, xargs -0, git-ls-files -z, etc.  Even people who are
> -familiar with these may assume such flags are not relevant because
> -someone else renamed any such files in their repo back before the person
> -doing the filtering joined the project.  And often, even those familiar
> -with handling arguments with spaces may not do so just because they
> -aren't in the mindset of thinking about everything that could possibly
> -go wrong.
> -
> -* Non-ascii filenames can be silently removed despite being in a desired
> -directory.  Keeping only wanted paths is often done using pipelines like
> -`git ls-files | grep -v ^WANTED_DIR/ | xargs git rm`.  ls-files will
> -only quote filenames if needed, so folks may not notice that one of the
> -files didn't match the regex (at least not until it's much too late).
> -Yes, someone who knows about core.quotePath can avoid this (unless they
> -have other special characters like \t, \n, or "), and people who use
> -ls-files -z with something other than grep can avoid this, but that
> -doesn't mean they will.
> -
> -* Similarly, when moving files around, one can find that filenames with
> -non-ascii or special characters end up in a different directory, one
> -that includes a double quote character.  (This is technically the same
> -issue as above with quoting, but perhaps an interesting different way
> -that it can and has manifested as a problem.)
> +  they cause problems for shell pipelines.  Not everyone is familiar
> +  with find -print0, xargs -0, git-ls-files -z, etc.  Even people who
> +  are familiar with these may assume such flags are not relevant
> +  because someone else renamed any such files in their repo back
> +  before the person doing the filtering joined the project.  And
> +  often, even those familiar with handling arguments with spaces may
> +  not do so just because they aren't in the mindset of thinking about
> +  everything that could possibly go wrong.
> +
> +* Non-ascii filenames can be silently removed despite being in a
> +  desired directory.  Keeping only wanted paths is often done using
> +  pipelines like `git ls-files | grep -v ^WANTED_DIR/ | xargs git rm`.
> +  ls-files will only quote filenames if needed, so folks may not
> +  notice that one of the files didn't match the regex (at least not
> +  until it's much too late).  Yes, someone who knows about
> +  core.quotePath can avoid this (unless they have other special
> +  characters like \t, \n, or "), and people who use ls-files -z with
> +  something other than grep can avoid this, but that doesn't mean they
> +  will.
> +
> +* Similarly, when moving files around, one can find that filenames
> +  with non-ascii or special characters end up in a different
> +  directory, one that includes a double quote character.  (This is
> +  technically the same issue as above with quoting, but perhaps an
> +  interesting different way that it can and has manifested as a
> +  problem.)
>  
>  * It's far too easy to accidentally mix up old and new history.  It's
> -still possible with any tool, but git-filter-branch almost invites it.
> -If lucky, the only downside is users getting frustrated that they don't
> -know how to shrink their repo and remove the old stuff.  If unlucky,
> -they merge old and new history and end up with multiple "copies" of each
> -commit, some of which have unwanted or sensitive files and others which
> -don't.  This comes about in multiple different ways:
> +  still possible with any tool, but git-filter-branch almost
> +  invites it.  If lucky, the only downside is users getting frustrated
> +  that they don't know how to shrink their repo and remove the old
> +  stuff.  If unlucky, they merge old and new history and end up with
> +  multiple "copies" of each commit, some of which have unwanted or
> +  sensitive files and others which don't.  This comes about in
> +  multiple different ways:
>  
>    ** the default to only doing a partial history rewrite ('--all' is not
>       the default and few examples show it)
> @@ -609,8 +615,8 @@ don't.  This comes about in multiple different ways:
>       "DISCUSSION" section of the git filter-repo manual page for more
>       details.
>  
> -* Annotated tags can be accidentally converted to lightweight tags, due
> -to either of two issues:
> +* Annotated tags can be accidentally converted to lightweight tags,
> +  due to either of two issues:
>  
>    ** Someone can do a history rewrite, realize they messed up, restore
>       from the backups in refs/original/, and then redo their
> @@ -623,71 +629,74 @@ to either of two issues:
>       restored from refs/original/ in a previously botched rewrite).
>  
>  * Any commit messages that specify an encoding will become corrupted
> -by the rewrite; git-filter-branch ignores the encoding, takes the original
> -bytes, and feeds it to commit-tree without telling it the proper
> -encoding.  (This happens whether or not --msg-filter is used.)
> +  by the rewrite; git-filter-branch ignores the encoding, takes the
> +  original bytes, and feeds it to commit-tree without telling it the
> +  proper encoding.  (This happens whether or not --msg-filter is
> +  used.)
>  
>  * Commit messages (even if they are all UTF-8) by default become
> -corrupted due to not being updated -- any references to other commit
> -hashes in commit messages will now refer to no-longer-extant commits.
> -
> -* There are no facilities for helping users find what unwanted crud they
> -should delete, which means they are much more likely to have incomplete
> -or partial cleanups that sometimes result in confusion and people
> -wasting time trying to understand.  (For example, folks tend to just
> -look for big files to delete instead of big directories or extensions,
> -and once they do so, then sometime later folks using the new repository
> -who are going through history will notice a build artifact directory
> -that has some files but not others, or a cache of dependencies
> -(node_modules or similar) which couldn't have ever been functional since
> -it's missing some files.)
> +  corrupted due to not being updated -- any references to other commit
> +  hashes in commit messages will now refer to no-longer-extant
> +  commits.
> +
> +* There are no facilities for helping users find what unwanted crud
> +  they should delete, which means they are much more likely to have
> +  incomplete or partial cleanups that sometimes result in confusion
> +  and people wasting time trying to understand.  (For example, folks
> +  tend to just look for big files to delete instead of big directories
> +  or extensions, and once they do so, then sometime later folks using
> +  the new repository who are going through history will notice a build
> +  artifact directory that has some files but not others, or a cache of
> +  dependencies (node_modules or similar) which couldn't have ever been
> +  functional since it's missing some files.)
>  
>  * If --prune-empty isn't specified, then the filtering process can
> -create hoards of confusing empty commits
> +  create hoards of confusing empty commits
>  
>  * If --prune-empty is specified, then intentionally placed empty
> -commits from before the filtering operation are also pruned instead of
> -just pruning commits that became empty due to filtering rules.
> +  commits from before the filtering operation are also pruned instead
> +  of just pruning commits that became empty due to filtering rules.
>  
>  * If --prune empty is specified, sometimes empty commits are missed
> -and left around anyway (a somewhat rare bug, but it happens...)
> +  and left around anyway (a somewhat rare bug, but it happens...)
>  
>  * A minor issue, but users who have a goal to update all names and
> -emails in a repository may be led to --env-filter which will only update
> -authors and committers, missing taggers.
> +  emails in a repository may be led to --env-filter which will only
> +  update authors and committers, missing taggers.
>  
>  * If the user provides a --tag-name-filter that maps multiple tags to
> -the same name, no warning or error is provided; git-filter-branch simply
> -overwrites each tag in some undocumented pre-defined order resulting in
> -only one tag at the end.  (A git-filter-branch regression test requires
> -this surprising behavior.)
> +  the same name, no warning or error is provided; git-filter-branch
> +  simply overwrites each tag in some undocumented pre-defined order
> +  resulting in only one tag at the end.  (A git-filter-branch
> +  regression test requires this surprising behavior.)
>  
>  Also, the poor performance of git-filter-branch often leads to safety
>  issues:
>  
> -* Coming up with the correct shell snippet to do the filtering you want
> -is sometimes difficult unless you're just doing a trivial modification
> -such as deleting a couple files.  Unfortunately, people often learn if
> -the snippet is right or wrong by trying it out, but the rightness or
> -wrongness can vary depending on special circumstances (spaces in
> -filenames, non-ascii filenames, funny author names or emails, invalid
> -timezones, presence of grafts or replace objects, etc.), meaning they
> -may have to wait a long time, hit an error, then restart.  The
> -performance of git-filter-branch is so bad that this cycle is painful,
> -reducing the time available to carefully re-check (to say nothing about
> -what it does to the patience of the person doing the rewrite even if
> -they do technically have more time available).  This problem is extra
> -compounded because errors from broken filters may not be shown for a
> -long time and/or get lost in a sea of output.  Even worse, broken
> -filters often just result in silent incorrect rewrites.
> -
> -* To top it all off, even when users finally find working commands, they
> -naturally want to share them.  But they may be unaware that their repo
> -didn't have some special cases that someone else's does.  So, when
> -someone else with a different repository runs the same commands, they
> -get hit by the problems above.  Or, the user just runs commands that
> -really were vetted for special cases, but they run it on a different OS
> -where it doesn't work, as noted above.
> +* Coming up with the correct shell snippet to do the filtering you
> +  want is sometimes difficult unless you're just doing a trivial
> +  modification such as deleting a couple files.  Unfortunately, people
> +  often learn if the snippet is right or wrong by trying it out, but
> +  the rightness or wrongness can vary depending on special
> +  circumstances (spaces in filenames, non-ascii filenames, funny
> +  author names or emails, invalid timezones, presence of grafts or
> +  replace objects, etc.), meaning they may have to wait a long time,
> +  hit an error, then restart.  The performance of git-filter-branch is
> +  so bad that this cycle is painful, reducing the time available to
> +  carefully re-check (to say nothing about what it does to the
> +  patience of the person doing the rewrite even if they do technically
> +  have more time available).  This problem is extra compounded because
> +  errors from broken filters may not be shown for a long time and/or
> +  get lost in a sea of output.  Even worse, broken filters often just
> +  result in silent incorrect rewrites.
> +
> +* To top it all off, even when users finally find working commands,
> +  they naturally want to share them.  But they may be unaware that
> +  their repo didn't have some special cases that someone else's does.
> +  So, when someone else with a different repository runs the same
> +  commands, they get hit by the problems above.  Or, the user just
> +  runs commands that really were vetted for special cases, but they
> +  run it on a different OS where it doesn't work, as noted above.
>  
>  GIT
>  ---

Re: [PATCH 1/3] doc: reword -B option of diff into something sensible

[Junio C Hamano]

Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr> writes:

> The sentence seemed to miss a verb.

Yeah, that is entirely my fault.  What is worse is that the
description is full of overly long sentences.  The result of
applying this patch may be more gramatically correct than the
original, and it might be easier to read than the original, but I
think it is still too hard to understand than it should be.

Perhaps we should consider a total rewrite of the paragraph (no pun
intended).



> Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
> ---
>  Documentation/diff-options.txt | 16 ++++++++--------
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/diff-options.txt b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> index 09faee3b44..350d0a2fb0 100644
> --- a/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> @@ -452,14 +452,14 @@ endif::git-format-patch[]
>  	create. This serves two purposes:
>  +
>  It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
> -not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
> -few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
> -single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
> -everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
> -option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
> -original should remain in the result for Git to consider it a total
> -rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
> -deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
> +does not appear as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together
> +with a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context,
> +but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
> +insertion of everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect
> +of the -B option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than
> +30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to consider it
> +a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series
> +of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
>  +
>  When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
>  source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared

Re: [PATCH 1/3] doc: reword -B option of diff into something sensible

[Jean-Noël Avila]

On 12/12/2019 at 21:46, Jean-Noël Avila wrote:
> The sentence seemed to miss a verb.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
> ---
>  Documentation/diff-options.txt | 16 ++++++++--------
>  1 file changed, 8 insertions(+), 8 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/diff-options.txt b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> index 09faee3b44..350d0a2fb0 100644
> --- a/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> @@ -452,14 +452,14 @@ endif::git-format-patch[]
>  	create. This serves two purposes:
>  +
>  It affects the way a change that amounts to a total rewrite of a file
> -not as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together with a very
> -few lines that happen to match textually as the context, but as a
> -single deletion of everything old followed by a single insertion of
> -everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect of the -B
> -option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than 30% of the
> -original should remain in the result for Git to consider it a total
> -rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series of
> -deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
> +does not appear as a series of deletion and insertion mixed together
> +with a very few lines that happen to match textually as the context,
> +but as a single deletion of everything old followed by a single
> +insertion of everything new, and the number `m` controls this aspect
> +of the -B option (defaults to 60%). `-B/70%` specifies that less than
> +30% of the original should remain in the result for Git to consider it
> +a total rewrite (i.e. otherwise the resulting patch will be a series
> +of deletion and insertion mixed together with context lines).
>  +
>  When used with -M, a totally-rewritten file is also considered as the
>  source of a rename (usually -M only considers a file that disappeared
> 

Hello,

It seems this patch was never merged, whereas the two following ones are
indeed merged. Was it refused because a complete rewrite was expected?