1Git 2.16 Release Notes 2====================== 3 4Backward compatibility notes and other notable changes. 5 6 * Use of an empty string as a pathspec element that is used for 7 'everything matches' is now an error. 8 9 10Updates since v2.15 11------------------- 12 13UI, Workflows & Features 14 15 * An empty string as a pathspec element that means "everything" 16 i.e. 'git add ""', is now illegal. We started this by first 17 deprecating and warning a pathspec that has such an element in 18 2.11 (Nov 2016). 19 20 * A hook script that is set unexecutable is simply ignored. Git 21 notifies when such a file is ignored, unless the message is 22 squelched via advice.ignoredHook configuration. 23 24 * "git pull" has been taught to accept "--[no-]signoff" option and 25 pass it down to "git merge". 26 27 * The "--push-option=<string>" option to "git push" now defaults to a 28 list of strings configured via push.pushOption variable. 29 30 * "gitweb" checks if a directory is searchable with Perl's "-x" 31 operator, which can be enhanced by using "filetest 'access'" 32 pragma, which now we do. 33 34 * "git stash save" has been deprecated in favour of "git stash push". 35 36 * The set of paths output from "git status --ignored" was tied 37 closely with its "--untracked=<mode>" option, but now it can be 38 controlled more flexibly. Most notably, a directory that is 39 ignored because it is listed to be ignored in the ignore/exclude 40 mechanism can be handled differently from a directory that ends up 41 to be ignored only because all files in it are ignored. 42 43 * The remote-helper for talking to MediaWiki has been updated to 44 truncate an overlong pagename so that ".mw" suffix can still be 45 added. 46 47 * The remote-helper for talking to MediaWiki has been updated to 48 work with mediawiki namespaces. 49 50 * The "--format=..." option "git for-each-ref" takes learned to show 51 the name of the 'remote' repository and the ref at the remote side 52 that is affected for 'upstream' and 'push' via "%(push:remotename)" 53 and friends. 54 55 * Doc and message updates to teach users "bisect view" is a synonym 56 for "bisect visualize". 57 58 * "git bisect run" that did not specify any command to run used to go 59 ahead and treated all commits to be tested as 'good'. This has 60 been corrected by making the command error out. 61 62 * The SubmittingPatches document has been converted to produce an 63 HTML version via AsciiDoc/Asciidoctor. 64 65 * We learned to talk to watchman to speed up "git status" and other 66 operations that need to see which paths have been modified. 67 68 * The "diff" family of commands learned to ignore differences in 69 carriage return at the end of line. 70 71 * Places that know about "sendemail.to", like documentation and shell 72 completion (in contrib/) have been taught about "sendemail.tocmd", 73 too. 74 75 * "git add --renormalize ." is a new and safer way to record the fact 76 that you are correcting the end-of-line convention and other 77 "convert_to_git()" glitches in the in-repository data. 78 79 * "git branch" and "git checkout -b" are now forbidden from creating 80 a branch whose name is "HEAD". 81 82 * "git branch --list" learned to show its output through the pager by 83 default when the output is going to a terminal, which is controlled 84 by the pager.branch configuration variable. This is similar to a 85 recent change to "git tag --list". 86 87 * "git grep -W", "git diff -W" and their friends learned a heuristic 88 to extend a pre-context beyond the line that matches the "function 89 pattern" (aka "diff.*.xfuncname") to include a comment block, if 90 exists, that immediately precedes it. 91 92 * "git config --expiry-date gc.reflogexpire" can read "2.weeks" from 93 the configuration and report it as a timestamp, just like "--int" 94 would read "1k" and report 1024, to help consumption by scripts. 95 96 * The shell completion (in contrib/) learned that "git pull" can take 97 the "--autostash" option. 98 99 * The tagnames "git log --decorate" uses to annotate the commits can 100 now be limited to subset of available refs with the two additional 101 options, --decorate-refs[-exclude]=<pattern>. 102 103 * "git grep" compiled with libpcre2 sometimes triggered a segfault, 104 which is being fixed. 105 106 * "git send-email" tries to see if the sendmail program is available 107 in /usr/lib and /usr/sbin; extend the list of locations to be 108 checked to also include directories on $PATH. 109 110 111Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc. 112 113 * An earlier update made it possible to use an on-stack in-core 114 lockfile structure (as opposed to having to deliberately leak an 115 on-heap one). Many codepaths have been updated to take advantage 116 of this new facility. 117 118 * Calling cmd_foo() as if it is a general purpose helper function is 119 a no-no. Correct two instances of such to set an example. 120 121 * We try to see if somebody runs our test suite with a shell that 122 does not support "local" like bash/dash does. 123 124 * An early part of piece-by-piece rewrite of "git bisect" in C. 125 126 * GSoC to piece-by-piece rewrite "git submodule" in C. 127 128 * Optimize the code to find shortest unique prefix of object names. 129 130 * Pathspec-limited revision traversal was taught not to keep finding 131 unneeded differences once it knows two trees are different inside 132 given pathspec. 133 134 * Conversion from uchar[20] to struct object_id continues. 135 136 * Code cleanup. 137 138 * A single-word "unsigned flags" in the diff options is being split 139 into a structure with many bitfields. 140 141 * TravisCI build updates. 142 143 * Parts of a test to drive the long-running content filter interface 144 has been split into its own module, hopefully to eventually become 145 reusable. 146 147 * Drop (perhaps overly cautious) sanity check before using the index 148 read from the filesystem at runtime. 149 150 * The build procedure has been taught to avoid some unnecessary 151 instability in the build products. 152 153 * A new mechanism to upgrade the wire protocol in place is proposed 154 and demonstrated that it works with the older versions of Git 155 without harming them. 156 157 * An infrastructure to define what hash function is used in Git is 158 introduced, and an effort to plumb that throughout various 159 codepaths has been started. 160 161 * The code to iterate over loose object files got optimized. 162 163 * An internal function that was left for backward compatibility has 164 been removed, as there is no remaining callers. 165 166Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups. 167 168 169Fixes since v2.15 170----------------- 171 172 * "auto" as a value for the columnar output configuration ought to 173 judge "is the output consumed by humans?" with the same criteria as 174 "auto" for coloured output configuration, i.e. either the standard 175 output stream is going to tty, or a pager is in use. We forgot the 176 latter, which has been fixed. 177 178 * The experimental "color moved lines differently in diff output" 179 feature was buggy around "ignore whitespace changes" edges, which 180 has been corrected. 181 182 * Instead of using custom line comparison and hashing functions to 183 implement "moved lines" coloring in the diff output, use the pair 184 of these functions from lower-layer xdiff/ code. 185 186 * Some codepaths did not check for errors when asking what branch the 187 HEAD points at, which have been fixed. 188 189 * "git commit", after making a commit, did not check for errors when 190 asking on what branch it made the commit, which has been corrected. 191 192 * "git status --ignored -u" did not stop at a working tree of a 193 separate project that is embedded in an ignored directory and 194 listed files in that other project, instead of just showing the 195 directory itself as ignored. 196 197 * A broken access to object databases in recent update to "git grep 198 --recurse-submodules" has been fixed. 199 200 * A recent regression in "git rebase -i" that broke execution of git 201 commands from subdirectories via "exec" instruction has been fixed. 202 203 * A (possibly flakey) test fix. 204 205 * "git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}" bit a "BUG()" when run 206 outside a repository for obvious reasons; clarify the documentation 207 and make sure we do not even try to expand the at-mark magic in 208 such a case, but still call the validation logic for branch names. 209 210 * "git fetch --recurse-submodules" now knows that submodules can be 211 moved around in the superproject in addition to getting updated, 212 and finds the ones that need to be fetched accordingly. 213 214 * Command line completion (in contrib/) update. 215 216 * Description of blame.{showroot,blankboundary,showemail,date} 217 configuration variables have been added to "git config --help". 218 219 * After an error from lstat(), diff_populate_filespec() function 220 sometimes still went ahead and used invalid data in struct stat, 221 which has been fixed. 222 223 * UNC paths are also relevant in Cygwin builds and they are now 224 tested just like Mingw builds. 225 226 * Correct start-up sequence so that a repository could be placed 227 immediately under the root directory again (which was broken at 228 around Git 2.13). 229 230 * The credential helper for libsecret (in contrib/) has been improved 231 to allow possibly prompting the end user to unlock secrets that are 232 currently locked (otherwise the secrets may not be loaded). 233 234 * MinGW updates. 235 236 * Error checking in "git imap-send" for empty response has been 237 improved. 238 239 * Recent update to the refs infrastructure implementation started 240 rewriting packed-refs file more often than before; this has been 241 optimized again for most trivial cases. 242 243 * Some error messages did not quote filenames shown in it, which have 244 been fixed. 245 246 * "git rebase -i" recently started misbehaving when a submodule that 247 is configured with 'submodule.<name>.ignore' is dirty; this has 248 been corrected. 249 250 * Building with NO_LIBPCRE1_JIT did not disable it, which has been fixed. 251 252 * We used to add an empty alternate object database to the system 253 that does not help anything; it has been corrected. 254 255 * Doc update around use of "format-patch --subject-prefix" etc. 256 257 * A fix for an ancient bug in "git apply --ignore-space-change" codepath. 258 259 * Clarify and enhance documentation for "merge-base --fork-point", as 260 it was clear what it computed but not why/what for. 261 262 * A few scripts (both in production and tests) incorrectly redirected 263 their error output. These have been corrected. 264 265 * "git notes" sent its error message to its standard output stream, 266 which was corrected. 267 268 * The three-way merge performed by "git cherry-pick" was confused 269 when a new submodule was added in the meantime, which has been 270 fixed (or "papered over"). 271 272 * The sequencer machinery (used by "git cherry-pick A..B", and "git 273 rebase -i", among other things) would have lost a commit if stopped 274 due to an unlockable index file, which has been fixed. 275 276 * "git apply --inaccurate-eof" when used with "--ignore-space-change" 277 triggered an internal sanity check, which has been fixed. 278 279 * Command line completion (in contrib/) has been taught about the 280 "--copy" option of "git branch". 281 282 * When "git rebase" prepared an mailbox of changes and fed it to "git 283 am" to replay them, it was confused when a stray "From " happened 284 to be in the log message of one of the replayed changes. This has 285 been corrected. 286 287 * There was a recent semantic mismerge in the codepath to write out a 288 section of a configuration section, which has been corrected. 289 290 * Mentions of "git-rebase" and "git-am" (dashed form) still remained 291 in end-user visible strings emitted by the "git rebase" command; 292 they have been corrected. 293 294 * Contrary to the documentation, "git pull -4/-6 other-args" did not 295 ask the underlying "git fetch" to go over IPv4/IPv6, which has been 296 corrected. 297 298 * "git checkout --recursive" may overwrite and rewind the history of 299 the branch that happens to be checked out in submodule 300 repositories, which might not be desirable. Detach the HEAD but 301 still allow the recursive checkout to succeed in such a case. 302 (merge 57f22bf997 sb/submodule-recursive-checkout-detach-head later to maint). 303 304 * "git branch --set-upstream" has been deprecated and (sort of) 305 removed, as "--set-upstream-to" is the preferred one these days. 306 The documentation still had "--set-upstream" listed on its 307 synopsis section, which has been corrected. 308 (merge a060f3d3d8 tz/branch-doc-remove-set-upstream later to maint). 309 310 * Internally we use 0{40} as a placeholder object name to signal the 311 codepath that there is no such object (e.g. the fast-forward check 312 while "git fetch" stores a new remote-tracking ref says "we know 313 there is no 'old' thing pointed at by the ref, as we are creating 314 it anew" by passing 0{40} for the 'old' side), and expect that a 315 codepath to locate an in-core object to return NULL as a sign that 316 the object does not exist. A look-up for an object that does not 317 exist however is quite costly with a repository with large number 318 of packfiles. This access pattern has been optimized. 319 (merge 87b5e236a1 jk/fewer-pack-rescan later to maint). 320 321 * In addition to "git stash -m message", the command learned to 322 accept "git stash -mmessage" form. 323 (merge 5675473fcb ph/stash-save-m-option-fix later to maint). 324 325 * @{-N} in "git checkout @{-N}" may refer to a detached HEAD state, 326 but the documentation was not clear about it, which has been fixed. 327 (merge 75ce149575 ks/doc-checkout-previous later to maint). 328 329 * A regression in the progress eye-candy was fixed. 330 (merge 9c5951cacf jk/progress-delay-fix later to maint). 331 332 * Other minor doc, test and build updates and code cleanups. 333 (merge 1a1fc2d5b5 rd/man-prune-progress later to maint). 334 (merge 0ba014035a rd/man-reflog-add-n later to maint). 335 (merge e54b63359f rd/doc-notes-prune-fix later to maint). 336 (merge ff4c9b413a sp/doc-info-attributes later to maint). 337 (merge 7db2cbf4f1 jc/receive-pack-hook-doc later to maint). 338 (merge 5a0526264b tg/t-readme-updates later to maint). 339 (merge 5e83cca0b8 jk/no-optional-locks later to maint). 340 (merge 826c778f7c js/hashmap-update-sample later to maint).