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 100Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc. 101 102 * An earlier update made it possible to use an on-stack in-core 103 lockfile structure (as opposed to having to deliberately leak an 104 on-heap one). Many codepaths have been updated to take advantage 105 of this new facility. 106 107 * Calling cmd_foo() as if it is a general purpose helper function is 108 a no-no. Correct two instances of such to set an example. 109 110 * We try to see if somebody runs our test suite with a shell that 111 does not support "local" like bash/dash does. 112 113 * An early part of piece-by-piece rewrite of "git bisect" in C. 114 115 * GSoC to piece-by-piece rewrite "git submodule" in C. 116 117 * Optimize the code to find shortest unique prefix of object names. 118 119 * Pathspec-limited revision traversal was taught not to keep finding 120 unneeded differences once it knows two trees are different inside 121 given pathspec. 122 123 * Conversion from uchar[20] to struct object_id continues. 124 125 * Code cleanup. 126 127 * A single-word "unsigned flags" in the diff options is being split 128 into a structure with many bitfields. 129 130 * TravisCI build updates. 131 132 * Parts of a test to drive the long-running content filter interface 133 has been split into its own module, hopefully to eventually become 134 reusable. 135 136 * Drop (perhaps overly cautious) sanity check before using the index 137 read from the filesystem at runtime. 138 139 * The build procedure has been taught to avoid some unnecessary 140 instability in the build products. 141 142 * A new mechanism to upgrade the wire protocol in place is proposed 143 and demonstrated that it works with the older versions of Git 144 without harming them. 145 146Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups. 147 148 149Fixes since v2.15 150----------------- 151 152 * "auto" as a value for the columnar output configuration ought to 153 judge "is the output consumed by humans?" with the same criteria as 154 "auto" for coloured output configuration, i.e. either the standard 155 output stream is going to tty, or a pager is in use. We forgot the 156 latter, which has been fixed. 157 158 * The experimental "color moved lines differently in diff output" 159 feature was buggy around "ignore whitespace changes" edges, which 160 has been corrected. 161 162 * Instead of using custom line comparison and hashing functions to 163 implement "moved lines" coloring in the diff output, use the pair 164 of these functions from lower-layer xdiff/ code. 165 166 * Some codepaths did not check for errors when asking what branch the 167 HEAD points at, which have been fixed. 168 169 * "git commit", after making a commit, did not check for errors when 170 asking on what branch it made the commit, which has been corrected. 171 172 * "git status --ignored -u" did not stop at a working tree of a 173 separate project that is embedded in an ignored directory and 174 listed files in that other project, instead of just showing the 175 directory itself as ignored. 176 177 * A broken access to object databases in recent update to "git grep 178 --recurse-submodules" has been fixed. 179 180 * A recent regression in "git rebase -i" that broke execution of git 181 commands from subdirectories via "exec" instruction has been fixed. 182 183 * A (possibly flakey) test fix. 184 185 * "git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}" bit a "BUG()" when run 186 outside a repository for obvious reasons; clarify the documentation 187 and make sure we do not even try to expand the at-mark magic in 188 such a case, but still call the validation logic for branch names. 189 190 * "git fetch --recurse-submodules" now knows that submodules can be 191 moved around in the superproject in addition to getting updated, 192 and finds the ones that need to be fetched accordingly. 193 194 * Command line completion (in contrib/) update. 195 196 * Description of blame.{showroot,blankboundary,showemail,date} 197 configuration variables have been added to "git config --help". 198 199 * After an error from lstat(), diff_populate_filespec() function 200 sometimes still went ahead and used invalid data in struct stat, 201 which has been fixed. 202 203 * UNC paths are also relevant in Cygwin builds and they are now 204 tested just like Mingw builds. 205 206 * Correct start-up sequence so that a repository could be placed 207 immediately under the root directory again (which was broken at 208 around Git 2.13). 209 210 * The credential helper for libsecret (in contrib/) has been improved 211 to allow possibly prompting the end user to unlock secrets that are 212 currently locked (otherwise the secrets may not be loaded). 213 214 * MinGW updates. 215 216 * Error checking in "git imap-send" for empty response has been 217 improved. 218 219 * Recent update to the refs infrastructure implementation started 220 rewriting packed-refs file more often than before; this has been 221 optimized again for most trivial cases. 222 223 * Some error messages did not quote filenames shown in it, which have 224 been fixed. 225 226 * "git rebase -i" recently started misbehaving when a submodule that 227 is configured with 'submodule.<name>.ignore' is dirty; this has 228 been corrected. 229 230 * Building with NO_LIBPCRE1_JIT did not disable it, which has been fixed. 231 232 * We used to add an empty alternate object database to the system 233 that does not help anything; it has been corrected. 234 235 * Doc update around use of "format-patch --subject-prefix" etc. 236 237 * A fix for an ancient bug in "git apply --ignore-space-change" codepath. 238 239 * Clarify and enhance documentation for "merge-base --fork-point", as 240 it was clear what it computed but not why/what for. 241 242 * A few scripts (both in production and tests) incorrectly redirected 243 their error output. These have been corrected. 244 245 * "git notes" sent its error message to its standard output stream, 246 which was corrected. 247 248 * The three-way merge performed by "git cherry-pick" was confused 249 when a new submodule was added in the meantime, which has been 250 fixed (or "papered over"). 251 252 * The sequencer machinery (used by "git cherry-pick A..B", and "git 253 rebase -i", among other things) would have lost a commit if stopped 254 due to an unlockable index file, which has been fixed. 255 256 * "git apply --inaccurate-eof" when used with "--ignore-space-change" 257 triggered an internal sanity check, which has been fixed. 258 259 * Command line completion (in contrib/) has been taught about the 260 "--copy" option of "git branch". 261 262 * When "git rebase" prepared an mailbox of changes and fed it to "git 263 am" to replay them, it was confused when a stray "From " happened 264 to be in the log message of one of the replayed changes. This has 265 been corrected. 266 267 * There was a recent semantic mismerge in the codepath to write out a 268 section of a configuration section, which has been corrected. 269 270 * Mentions of "git-rebase" and "git-am" (dashed form) still remained 271 in end-user visible strings emitted by the "git rebase" command; 272 they have been corrected. 273 274 * Contrary to the documentation, "git pull -4/-6 other-args" did not 275 ask the underlying "git fetch" to go over IPv4/IPv6, which has been 276 corrected. 277 278 * "git checkout --recursive" may overwrite and rewind the history of 279 the branch that happens to be checked out in submodule 280 repositories, which might not be desirable. Detach the HEAD but 281 still allow the recursive checkout to succeed in such a case. 282 (merge 57f22bf997 sb/submodule-recursive-checkout-detach-head later to maint). 283 284 * "git branch --set-upstream" has been deprecated and (sort of) 285 removed, as "--set-upstream-to" is the preferred one these days. 286 The documentation still had "--set-upstream" listed on its 287 synopsys section, which has been corrected. 288 (merge a060f3d3d8 tz/branch-doc-remove-set-upstream later to maint). 289 290 * Internaly we use 0{40} as a placeholder object name to signal the 291 codepath that there is no such object (e.g. the fast-forward check 292 while "git fetch" stores a new remote-tracking ref says "we know 293 there is no 'old' thing pointed at by the ref, as we are creating 294 it anew" by passing 0{40} for the 'old' side), and expect that a 295 codepath to locate an in-core object to return NULL as a sign that 296 the object does not exist. A look-up for an object that does not 297 exist however is quite costly with a repository with large number 298 of packfiles. This access pattern has been optimized. 299 (merge 87b5e236a1 jk/fewer-pack-rescan later to maint). 300 301 * In addition to "git stash -m message", the command learned to 302 accept "git stash -mmessage" form. 303 (merge 5675473fcb ph/stash-save-m-option-fix later to maint). 304 305 * Other minor doc, test and build updates and code cleanups. 306 (merge 1a1fc2d5b5 rd/man-prune-progress later to maint). 307 (merge 0ba014035a rd/man-reflog-add-n later to maint). 308 (merge e54b63359f rd/doc-notes-prune-fix later to maint). 309 (merge ff4c9b413a sp/doc-info-attributes later to maint).