Re: [PATCH] refspec: make @ a valid refspec

[Jacob Keller <jacob.keller@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Nov 24, 2020 at 2:45 PM Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com> writes:
>
> >> I too find that "@ is a shortcut for HEAD" looks ugly both at the UI
> >> level and at the implementation level [*1*], but as long as we have
> >> it, it is good to try to be consistent and allow "@" everywhere
> >> where one would write "HEAD" in places where it is syntacitically
> >> infeasible---at least we would be consistently ugly that way ;-).
> >
> > Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
>
> Using "@" is rather "illogical" than "ugly", and at that point it is
> not so subjective.
>
> @-mark leads a suffix that applies some "magic" to what comes before
> it (e.g. next@{1}, maint@{2.weeks.ago}, and master@{-1}).  Making @
> a synonym for HEAD means '@' sometimes means a ref and most of the
> time means the introducer of magic that applies to a ref.
>
> Worse yet, @{4} does not refer to HEAD@{4} but refers to the 4-th
> previous commit the current branch pointed at, so a mnemonic for the
> end user to remember the distinction between the two is that a bare
> "@" is different from HEAD, which is a total opposite X-<.
>

However, @{0} *does* refer to what is currently checked out, which
would be head.. So in a sense @ meaning "the current branch" and
applying @{0} would always be HEAD, no?

I think it sort of works, but yea it is a bit messy.

Thanks,
Jake