Re: [PATCH v2 1/2] config: add options to list only variable names

[Christian Couder <christian.couder@gmail.com>]

On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 9:20 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
> SZEDER Gábor <szeder@ira.uka.de> writes:
>
>> @@ -16,11 +16,12 @@ SYNOPSIS
>>  'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-all name [value_regex]
>>  'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-regexp name_regex [value_regex]
>>  'git config' [<file-option>] [type] [-z|--null] --get-urlmatch name URL
>> +'git config' [<file-option>] [-z|--null] --get-name-regexp name_regex
>> ...
>
> At first I wondered why --get-name-regexp is needed, as (purely from
> the syntactic level) it appeared at the first glance the existing
> '--get-regexp' without 'value_regex' may be sufficient, until I read
> this:
>
>> +--get-name-regexp::
>> +     Like --get-regexp, but shows only matching variable names, not its
>> +     values.
>
> which makes it clear why it is needed.  The distinction is purely
> about the output, i.e. the values are omitted.

If the distinction is purely about the output, then it seems logical
to add only an output related option, like the --name-only option I
suggested, and not 2 new modes (--get-name-regexp and --list-names).

Doesn't it look like git config already has too many modes?

> But then it makes me wonder why --get-name-regexp shouldn't
> optionally accept value_regex like --get-regexp does, allowing you
> to say "list the variables that match this pattern whose values
> match this other pattern".  I know it may be a feature that is
> unnecessary for your purpose, but from a cursory look of the patch
> text, you do not seem to be doing anything different between
> get-regexp and get-name-regexp codepaths other than flipping
> omit_values bit on, so it could be that the feature is already
> supported but forgot to document it, perhaps?

This also suggests that it might be more logical to only add an option
called --name-only or --omit-values that would map directly to the
omit_values bit in the code.