diff --git a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.4.0.txt b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.4.0.txt index 7b23ca352d..cde64be535 100644 --- a/Documentation/RelNotes/2.4.0.txt +++ b/Documentation/RelNotes/2.4.0.txt @@ -6,19 +6,19 @@ Backward compatibility warning(s) This release has a few changes in the user-visible output from Porcelain commands. These are not meant to be parsed by scripts, but -the users still may want to be aware of the changes: +users still may want to be aware of the changes: - * Output from "git log --decorate" (and "%d" format specifier used in - the userformat "--format=" parameter "git log" family of - command takes) used to list "HEAD" just like other tips of branch - names, separated with a comma in between. E.g. + * The output from "git log --decorate" (and, more generally, the "%d" + format specifier used in the "--format=" parameter to the + "git log" family of commands) has changed. It used to list "HEAD" + just like other branches; e.g., $ git log --decorate -1 master commit bdb0f6788fa5e3cacc4315e9ff318a27b2676ff4 (HEAD, master) ... - This release updates the output slightly when HEAD refers to the tip - of a branch whose name is also shown in the output. The above is + This release changes the output slightly when HEAD refers to a + branch whose name is also shown in the output. The above is now shown as: $ git log --decorate -1 master @@ -26,15 +26,15 @@ the users still may want to be aware of the changes: ... * The phrasing "git branch" uses to describe a detached HEAD has been - updated to match that of "git status": + updated to agree with the phrasing used by "git status": - - When the HEAD is at the same commit as it was originally + - When HEAD is at the same commit as when it was originally detached, they now both show "detached at ". - - When the HEAD has moved since it was originally detached, - they now both show "detached from ". + - When HEAD has moved since it was originally detached, they now + both show "detached from ". - Earlier "git branch" always used "from" + Previously, "git branch" always used "from". Updates since v2.3 @@ -46,8 +46,9 @@ Ports platforms with smaller SSIZE_MAX, leading to read(2)/write(2) failures. - * We did not check the curl library version before using - CURLOPT_PROXYAUTH feature that may not exist. + * We did not check the curl library version before using the + CURLOPT_PROXYAUTH feature, which did not exist in older versions of + the library. * We now detect number of CPUs on older BSD-derived systems. @@ -66,99 +67,105 @@ UI, Workflows & Features * "git log --invert-grep --grep=WIP" will show only commits that do not have the string "WIP" in their messages. - * "git push" has been taught a "--atomic" option that makes push to - update more than one ref an "all-or-none" affair. + * "git push" has been taught an "--atomic" option that makes a push + that updates more than one ref an "all-or-none" affair. - * Extending the "push to deploy" added in 2.3, the behaviour of "git - push" when updating the branch that is checked out can now be - tweaked by push-to-checkout hook. + * Extending the "push to deploy" feature that was added in 2.3, the + behaviour of "git push" when updating the branch that is checked + out can now be tweaked by a "push-to-checkout" hook. - * Using environment variable LANGUAGE and friends on the client side, - HTTP-based transports now send Accept-Language when making requests. + * HTTP-based transports now send Accept-Language when making + requests. The languages to accept are inferred from environment + variables on the client side (LANGUAGE, etc). * "git send-email" used to accept a mistaken "y" (or "yes") as an - answer to "What encoding do you want to use [UTF-8]? " without - questioning. Now it asks for confirmation when the answer looks - too short to be a valid encoding name. + answer to "What encoding do you want to use [UTF-8]?" without + questioning. Now it asks for confirmation when the answer looks too + short to be a valid encoding name. * When "git apply --whitespace=fix" fixed whitespace errors in the common context lines, the command reports that it did so. - * "git status" now allows the "-v" to be given twice to show the - differences that are left in the working tree not to be committed. + * "git status" now allows the "-v" option to be given twice, in which + case it also shows the differences in the working tree that are not + staged to be committed. - * "git cherry-pick" used to clean-up the log message even when it is - merely replaying an existing commit. It now replays the message - verbatim unless you are editing the message of resulting commits. + * "git cherry-pick" used to clean up the log message even when it is + merely replaying an existing commit. It now replays the message + verbatim unless you are editing the message of the resulting + commit. * "git archive" can now be told to set the 'text' attribute in the resulting zip archive. - * Output from "git log --decorate" mentions HEAD when it points at a - tip of an branch differently from a detached HEAD. + * Output from "git log --decorate" now distinguishes between a + detached HEAD vs. a HEAD that points at a branch. - This is a potentially backward-incompatible change. + This is a potentially backward-incompatible change; see above for + more information. - * "git branch" on a detached HEAD always said "(detached from xyz)", - even when "git status" would report "detached at xyz". The HEAD is - actually at xyz and haven't been moved since it was detached in - such a case, but the user cannot read what the current value of - HEAD is when "detached from" is used. + * When HEAD was detached when at commit xyz and hasn't been moved + since it was detached, "git status" would report "detached at xyz" + whereas "git branch" would report "detached from xyz". Now the + output of "git branch" agrees with that of "git status". - * "git -C '' subcmd" refused to work in the current directory, unlike - "cd ''" which silently behaves as a no-op. + This is a potentially backward-incompatible change; see above for + more information. + + * "git -C '' subcmd" now works in the current directory (analogously + to "cd ''") rather than dying with an error message. (merge 6a536e2 kn/git-cd-to-empty later to maint). * The versionsort.prereleaseSuffix configuration variable can be used - to specify that v1.0-pre1 comes before v1.0. + to specify that, for example, v1.0-pre1 comes before v1.0. * A new "push.followTags" configuration turns the "--follow-tags" option on by default for the "git push" command. - * "git log --graph --no-walk A B..." is a conflicting request that - asks nonsense; no-walk tells us show discrete points in the - history, while graph asks to draw connections between these - discrete points. Forbid the combination. + * "git log --graph --no-walk A B..." is a nonsensical combination of + options: "--no-walk" requests discrete points in the history, while + "--graph" asks to draw connections between these discrete points. + Forbid the use of these options together. * "git rev-list --bisect --first-parent" does not work (yet) and can - even cause SEGV; forbid it. "git log --bisect --first-parent" - would not be useful until "git bisect --first-parent" materializes, - so it is also forbidden for now. + even cause SEGV; forbid it. "git log --bisect --first-parent" would + not be useful until "git bisect --first-parent" materializes, so + also forbid it for now. Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc. - * Implementation of N_() macro has been updated slightly to help us + * Slightly change the implementation of the N_() macro to help us detect mistakes. - * Implementation of "reflog expire" has been restructured to fit the - reflogs better with the recently updated ref API. + * Restructure the implementation of "reflog expire" to fit better + with the recently updated reference API. - * The transport-helper did not give transport options such as + * The transport-helper did not pass transport options such as verbosity, progress, cloning, etc. to import and export based helpers, like it did for fetch and push based helpers, robbing them - the chance to honor the wish of the end-users better. + of the chance to honor the wish of the end-users better. - * The tests that wanted to see that file becomes unreadable after - running "chmod a-r file", and the tests that wanted to make sure it - is not run as root, we used "can we write into the / directory?" as - a cheap substitute, but on some platforms that is not a good - heuristics. The tests and their prerequisites have been updated to - check what they really require. + * The tests that wanted to see that a file becomes unreadable after + running "chmod a-r file", and the tests that wanted to make sure + that they are not run as root, used "can we write into the / + directory?" as a cheap substitute. But on some platforms that is + not a good heuristic. The tests and their prerequisites have been + updated to check what they really require. (merge f400e51 jk/sanity later to maint). * Various issues around "reflog expire", e.g. using --updateref when expiring a reflog for a symbolic reference, have been corrected and/or made saner. - * The strbuf API was explained between the API documentation and in - the header file. Move missing bits to strbuf.h so that programmers - can check only one place for all necessary information. + * The documentation for the strbuf API had been split between the API + documentation and the header file. Consolidate the documentation in + strbuf.h. * The error handling functions and conventions are now documented in - the API manual. + the API manual (in api-error-handling.txt). - * Optimize attribute look-up, mostly useful in "git grep" on a + * Optimize gitattribute look-up, mostly useful in "git grep" on a project that does not use many attributes, by avoiding it when we (should) know that the attributes are not defined in the first place. @@ -170,26 +177,25 @@ Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc. (merge 0b868f0 sb/hex-object-name-is-at-most-41-bytes-long later to maint). (merge 5d30851 dp/remove-duplicated-header-inclusion later to maint). - * Simplify the ref transaction API around how "the ref should be - pointing at this object" is specified. + * Simplify the ref transaction API for verifying that "the ref should + be pointing at this object". - * Code in "git daemon" to parse out and hold hostnames used in - request interpolation has been simplified. + * Simplify the code in "git daemon" that parses out and holds + hostnames used in request interpolation. - * "git push" codepath has been restructured to make it easier to add - new configuration bits. + * Restructure the "git push" codepath to make it easier to add new + configuration bits. - * The run-command interface was easy to abuse and make a pipe for us - to read from the process, wait for the process to finish and then - attempt to read its output, which is a pattern that lead to a - deadlock. Fix such uses by introducing a helper to do this - correctly (i.e. we need to read first and then wait the process to - finish) and also add code to prevent such abuse in the run-command - helper. + * The run-command interface made it easy to make a pipe for us to + read from a process, wait for the process to finish, and then + attempt to read its output. But this pattern can lead to deadlock. + So introduce a helper to do this correctly (i.e., first read, and + then wait the process to finish) and also add code to prevent such + abuse in the run-command helper. * People often forget to chain the commands in their test together - with &&, leaving a failure from an earlier command in the test go - unnoticed. The new GIT_TEST_CHAIN_LINT mechanism allows you to + with &&, letting a failure from an earlier command in the test go + unnoticed. The new GIT_TEST_CHAIN_LINT mechanism allows you to catch such a mistake more easily. @@ -208,33 +214,34 @@ notes for details). (merge a46442f jk/blame-commit-label later to maint). * "git rerere" (invoked internally from many mergy operations) did - not correctly signal errors when told to update the working tree - files and failed to do so for whatever reason. + not correctly signal errors when it attempted to update the working + tree files but failed for whatever reason. (merge 89ea903 jn/rerere-fail-on-auto-update-failure later to maint). * Setting diff.submodule to 'log' made "git format-patch" produce broken patches. (merge 339de50 dk/format-patch-ignore-diff-submodule later to maint). - * After attempting and failing a password-less authentication - (e.g. Kerberos), libcURL refuses to fall back to password based - Basic authentication without a bit of help/encouragement. + * After attempting and failing a password-less authentication (e.g., + Kerberos), libcURL refuses to fall back to password-based Basic + authentication without a bit of help/encouragement. (merge 4dbe664 bc/http-fallback-to-password-after-krb-fails later to maint). - * The "git push" documentation made the "--repo=" option + * The "git push" documentation for the "--repo=" option was easily misunderstood. (merge 57b92a7 mg/push-repo-option-doc later to maint). - * Code to read branch name from various files in .git/ directory - would have misbehaved if the code to write them left an empty file. + * Code to read a branch name from various files in the .git/ + directory would have overrun array limits if asked to read an empty + file. (merge 66ec904 jk/status-read-branch-name-fix later to maint). - * A misspelled conditional that is always true has been fixed. + * Remove a superfluous conditional that is always true. (merge 94ee8e2 jk/remote-curl-an-array-in-struct-cannot-be-null later to maint). - * The documentation incorrectly said that C(opy) and R(ename) are the - only ones that can be followed by the score number in the output in - the --raw format. + * The "git diff --raw" documentation incorrectly implied that C(opy) + and R(ename) are the only statuses that can be followed by a score + number. (merge ac1c2d9 jc/diff-format-doc later to maint). * A broken pack .idx file in the receiving repository prevented the @@ -251,44 +258,44 @@ notes for details). to the "log" command. (merge 3cab02d jc/doc-log-rev-list-options later to maint). - * "git apply --whitespace=fix" used to under-allocate the memory when - the fix resulted in a longer text than the original patch. + * "git apply --whitespace=fix" used to under-allocate memory when the + fix resulted in a longer text than the original patch. (merge 407a792 jc/apply-ws-fix-expands later to maint). * The interactive "show a list and let the user choose from it" - interface "add -i" used showed and prompted to the user even when - the candidate list was empty, against which the only "choice" the - user could have made was to choose nothing. + interface used by "git add -i" unnecessarily prompted the user even + when the candidate list was empty, against which the only "choice" + the user could have made was to choose nothing. (merge a9c4641 ak/add-i-empty-candidates later to maint). - * The todo list "git rebase -i" creates did not fully honor + * The todo list created by "git rebase -i" did not fully honor core.abbrev settings. (merge edb72d5 ks/rebase-i-abbrev later to maint). - * "git fetch" over a remote-helper that cannot respond to "list" - command could not fetch from a symbolic reference e.g. HEAD. + * "git fetch" over a remote-helper that cannot respond to the "list" + command could not fetch from a symbolic reference (e.g., HEAD). (merge 33cae54 mh/deref-symref-over-helper-transport later to maint). * "git push --signed" gave an incorrectly worded error message when the other side did not support the capability. * The "git push --signed" protocol extension did not limit what the - "nonce" that is a server-chosen string can contain or how long it - can be, which was unnecessarily lax. Limit both the length and the - alphabet to a reasonably small space that can still have enough + "nonce" (a server-chosen string) could contain nor how long it + could be, which was unnecessarily lax. Limit both the length and + the alphabet to a reasonably small space that can still have enough entropy. (merge afcb6ee jc/push-cert later to maint). - * The completion script (in contrib/) contaminated global namespace - and clobbered on a shell variable $x. + * The completion script (in contrib/) clobbered the shell variable $x + in the global shell namespace. (merge 852ff1c ma/bash-completion-leaking-x later to maint). - * We didn't format an integer that wouldn't fit in "int" but in - "uintmax_t" correctly. + * We incorrectly formatted a "uintmax_t" integer that doesn't fit in + "int". (merge d306f3d jk/decimal-width-for-uintmax later to maint). - * Reading configuration from a blob object, when it ends with a lone - CR, use to confuse the configuration parser. + * The configuration parser used to be confused when reading + configuration from a blob object that ends with a lone CR. (merge 1d0655c jk/config-no-ungetc-eof later to maint). * The pack bitmap support did not build with older versions of GCC. @@ -304,21 +311,21 @@ notes for details). (merge 1f985d6 ch/new-gpg-drops-rfc-1991 later to maint). * The credential helper for Windows (in contrib/) used to mishandle - a user name with an at-sign in it. + user names that contain an at-sign. (merge 13d261e av/wincred-with-at-in-username-fix later to maint). * "diff-highlight" (in contrib/) used to show byte-by-byte - differences, which meant that multi-byte characters can be chopped - in the middle. It learned to pay attention to character boundaries - (assuming the UTF-8 payload). + differences, which could cause multi-byte characters to be chopped + in the middle. It learned to pay attention to character boundaries + (assuming UTF-8). (merge 8d00662 jk/colors later to maint). - * Longstanding configuration variable naming rules has been added to - the documentation. + * Document longstanding configuration variable naming rules in + CodingGuidelines. (merge 35840a3 jc/conf-var-doc later to maint). * An earlier workaround to squelch unhelpful deprecation warnings - from the compiler on Mac OSX unnecessarily set minimum required + from the compiler on OS X unnecessarily set a minimum required version of the OS, which the user might want to raise (or lower) for other reasons. (merge 88c03eb es/squelch-openssl-warnings-on-macosx later to maint). @@ -335,33 +342,36 @@ notes for details). "path/to/submodule". (merge 8196e72 ps/submodule-sanitize-path-upon-add later to maint). - * "git merge-file" did not work correctly in a subdirectory. + * "git merge-file" did not work correctly when invoked in a + subdirectory. (merge 204a8ff ab/merge-file-prefix later to maint). - * "git blame" died, trying to free an uninitialized piece of memory. + * "git blame" could die trying to free an uninitialized piece of + memory. (merge e600592 es/blame-commit-info-fix later to maint). * "git fast-import" used to crash when it could not close and - conclude the resulting packfile cleanly. + finalize the resulting packfile cleanly. (merge 5e915f3 jk/fast-import-die-nicely-fix later to maint). - * "update-index --refresh" used to leak when an entry cannot be - refreshed for whatever reason. + * "update-index --refresh" used to leak memory when an entry could + not be refreshed for whatever reason. (merge bc1c2ca sb/plug-leak-in-make-cache-entry later to maint). * The "interpolated-path" option of "git daemon" inserted any string - client declared on the "host=" capability request without checking. - Sanitize and limit %H and %CH to a saner and a valid DNS name. + the client declared on the "host=" capability request without + checking. Sanitize and limit %H and %CH to a saner and a valid DNS + name. (merge b485373 jk/daemon-interpolate later to maint). - * "git daemon" looked up the hostname even when "%CH" and "%IP" - interpolations are not requested, which was unnecessary. + * "git daemon" unnecessarily looked up the hostname even when "%CH" + and "%IP" interpolations were not requested. (merge dc8edc8 rs/daemon-interpolate later to maint). - * Even though we officially haven't dropped Perl 5.8 support, the - Getopt::Long package that came with it does not support "--no-" - prefix to negate a boolean option; manually add support to help - people with older Getopt::Long package. + * We relied on "--no-" prefix handling in Perl's Getopt::Long + package, even though that support didn't exist in Perl 5.8 (which + we still support). Manually add support to help people with older + Getopt::Long packages. (merge f471494 km/send-email-getopt-long-workarounds later to maint). * "git apply" was not very careful about reading from, removing, @@ -370,13 +380,13 @@ notes for details). replacement for GNU patch). (merge e0d201b jc/apply-beyond-symlink later to maint). - * A breakage to git-svn around v2.2 era that triggers premature - closing of FileHandle has been corrected. + * Correct a breakage in git-svn, introduced around the v2.2 era, that + can cause FileHandles to be closed prematurely. (merge e426311 ew/svn-maint-fixes later to maint). - * We did not parse username followed by literal IPv6 address in SSH - transport URLs, e.g. ssh://user@[2001:db8::1]:22/repo.git - correctly. + * We did not parse usernames followed by literal IPv6 addresses + correctly in SSH transport URLs; e.g., + ssh://user@[2001:db8::1]:22/repo.git. (merge 6b6c5f7 tb/connect-ipv6-parse-fix later to maint). * The configuration variable 'mailinfo.scissors' was hard to @@ -387,28 +397,26 @@ notes for details). submodule.*.update configuration was not clearly documented. (merge 5c31acf ms/submodule-update-config-doc later to maint). - * "git diff --shortstat --dirstat=changes" showed a dirstat based on - lines that was never asked by the end user in addition to the - dirstat that the user asked for. + * "git diff --shortstat" used together with "--dirstat=changes" or + "--dirstat=files" incorrectly output dirstat information twice. (merge ab27389 mk/diff-shortstat-dirstat-fix later to maint). - * "git remote add" mentioned "--tags" and "--no-tags" and was not - clear that fetch from the remote in the future will use the default - behaviour when neither is given to override it. + * The manpage for "git remote add" mentioned "--tags" and "--no-tags" + but did not explain what happens if neither option is provided. (merge aaba0ab mg/doc-remote-tags-or-not later to maint). - * Description given by "grep -h" for its --exclude-standard option - was phrased poorly. + * The description of "--exclude-standard option" in the output of + "git grep -h" was phrased poorly. (merge 77fdb8a nd/grep-exclude-standard-help-fix later to maint). - * "git rebase -i" recently started to include the number of - commits in the todo list to be processed, but on a platform - that prepends leading whitespaces to "wc -l" output, the numbers - are shown with extra whitespaces that aren't necessary. + * "git rebase -i" recently started to include the number of commits + in the todo list, but that output included extraneous whitespace on + a platform that prepends leading whitespaces to its "wc -l" output. (merge 2185d3b es/rebase-i-count-todo later to maint). - * The borrowed code in kwset API did not follow our usual convention - to use "unsigned char" to store values that range from 0-255. + * The borrowed code in the kwset API did not follow our usual + convention to use "unsigned char" to store values that range from + 0-255. (merge 189c860 bw/kwset-use-unsigned later to maint). * A corrupt input to "git diff -M" used to cause it to segfault. @@ -418,9 +426,8 @@ notes for details). (merge 3f88c1b mg/verify-commit later to maint). * "git imap-send" learned to optionally talk with an IMAP server via - libcURL; because there is no other option when Git is built with - NO_OPENSSL option, use that codepath by default under such - configuration. + libcURL. Because there is no other option when Git is built with + the NO_OPENSSL option, use libcURL by default in that case. (merge dcd01ea km/imap-send-libcurl-options later to maint). * "git log --decorate" did not reset colors correctly around the @@ -436,44 +443,45 @@ notes for details). transport. (merge 8ddf3ca jk/smart-http-hide-refs later to maint). - * "git tag -h" used to show the "--column" and "--sort" options - that are about listing in a wrong section. + * In the "git tag -h" output, move the documentation for the + "--column" and "--sort" options to the "Tag listing options" + section. (merge dd059c6 jk/tag-h-column-is-a-listing-option later to maint). * "git prune" used to largely ignore broken refs when deciding which - objects are still being used, which could spread an existing small - damage and make it a larger one. + objects are still being used, which could cause reference + corruption to lead to object loss. (merge ea56c4e jk/prune-with-corrupt-refs later to maint). - * The split-index mode introduced at v2.3.0-rc0~41 was broken in the + * The split-index mode introduced in v2.3.0-rc0~41 was broken in the codepath to protect us against a broken reimplementation of Git that writes an invalid index with duplicated index entries, etc. (merge 03f15a7 tg/fix-check-order-with-split-index later to maint). - * "git fetch" that fetches a commit using the allow-tip-sha1-in-want - extension could have failed to fetch all the requested refs. + * "git fetch", when fetching a commit using the + allow-tip-sha1-in-want extension, could have failed to fetch all of + the requested refs. (merge 32d0462 jk/fetch-pack later to maint). * An failure early in the "git clone" that started creating the - working tree and repository could have resulted in some directories - and files left without getting cleaned up. + working tree and repository could have resulted in the failure to + clean up some directories and files. (merge 16eff6c jk/cleanup-failed-clone later to maint). * Recommend format-patch and send-email for those who want to submit patches to this project. (merge b25c469 jc/submitting-patches-mention-send-email later to maint). - * Even though "git grep --quiet" is run merely to ask for the exit - status, we spawned the pager regardless. Stop doing that. + * Do not spawn the pager when "git grep" is run with "--quiet". (merge c2048f0 ws/grep-quiet-no-pager later to maint). * The prompt script (in contrib/) did not show the untracked sign when working in a subdirectory without any untracked files. (merge 9bdc517 ct/prompt-untracked-fix later to maint). - * An earlier update to the parser that disects a URL broke an - address, followed by a colon, followed by an empty string (instead - of the port number), e.g. ssh://example.com:/path/to/repo. + * An earlier update to the URL parser broke an address that contains + a colon but an empty string for the port number, like + ssh://example.com:/path/to/repo. (merge 6b6c5f7 tb/connect-ipv6-parse-fix later to maint). * Code cleanups and documentation updates.