UI, Workflows & Features
+ * The bash completion script (in contrib/) learned a few options that
+ "git revert" takes.
+
+ * Whitespace breakages in deleted and context lines can also be
+ painted in the output of "git diff" and friends with the new
+ --ws-error-highlight option.
+
+ * List of commands shown by "git help" are grouped along the workflow
+ elements to help early learners.
+
* "git p4" now detects the filetype (e.g. binary) correctly even when
the files are opened exclusively.
chunks from Perforce, instead of making one call to "p4 changes"
that may trigger "too many rows scanned" error from Perforce.
+ * Unlike "$EDITOR" and "$GIT_EDITOR" that can hold the path to the
+ command and initial options (e.g. "/path/to/emacs -nw"), 'git p4'
+ did not let the shell interpolate the contents of the environment
+ variable that name the editor "$P4EDITOR" (and "$EDITOR", too).
+ This release makes it in line with the rest of Git, as well as with
+ Perforce.
+
+ * A new short-hand <branch>@{push} denotes the remote-tracking branch
+ that tracks the branch at the remote the <branch> would be pushed
+ to.
+
* "git show-branch --topics HEAD" (with no other arguments) did not
do anything interesting. Instead, contrast the given revision
against all the local branches by default.
* Tweak the sample "store" backend of the credential helper to honor
XDG configuration file locations when specified.
+ * A heuristic to help the "git <cmd> <revs> <pathspec>" command line
+ convention to catch mistyped paths is to make sure all the non-rev
+ parameters in the later part of the command line are names of the
+ files in the working tree, but that means "git grep $str -- \*.c"
+ must always be disambiguated with "--", because nobody sane will
+ create a file whose name literally is asterisk-dot-see. Loosen the
+ heuristic to declare that with a wildcard string the user likely
+ meant to give us a pathspec.
+
+ * "git merge FETCH_HEAD" learned that the previous "git fetch" could
+ be to create an Octopus merge, i.e. recording multiple branches
+ that are not marked as "not-for-merge"; this allows us to lose an
+ old style invocation "git merge <msg> HEAD $commits..." in the
+ implementation of "git pull" script; the old style syntax can now
+ be deprecated.
+
+ * Help us to find broken test script that splits the body part of the
+ test by mistaken use of wrong kind of quotes.
+ (merge d93d5d5 jc/test-prereq-validate later to maint).
+
+ * Developer support to automatically detect broken &&-chain in the
+ test scripts is now turned on by default.
+ (merge 92b269f jk/test-chain-lint later to maint).
+
+ * Filter scripts were run with SIGPIPE disabled on the Git side,
+ expecting that they may not read what Git feeds them to filter.
+ We however treated a filter that does not read its input fully
+ before exiting as an error.
+
+ This changes semantics, but arguably in a good way. If a filter
+ can produce its output without consuming its input using whatever
+ magic, we now let it do so, instead of diagnosing it as a
+ programming error.
+
+ * Instead of dying immediately upon failing to obtain a lock, the
+ locking (of refs etc) retries after a short while with backoff.
+
+ * Introduce http.<url>.SSLCipherList configuration variable to tweak
+ the list of cipher suite to be used with libcURL when talking with
+ https:// sites.
+
+ * "git subtree" script (in contrib/) used "echo -n" to produce
+ progress messages in a non-portable way.
+
+ * "git subtree" script (in contrib/) does not have --squash option
+ when pushing, but the documentation and help text pretended as if
+ it did.
+
+ * The Git subcommand completion (in contrib/) listed credential
+ helpers among candidates, which is not something the end user would
+ invoke interactively.
+
+ * The index file can be taught with "update-index --untracked-cache"
+ to optionally remember already seen untracked files, in order to
+ speed up "git status" in a working tree with tons of cruft.
+
+ * "git mergetool" learned to drive WinMerge as a backend.
+
+ * "git upload-pack" that serves "git fetch" can be told to serve
+ commits that are not at the tip of any ref, as long as they are
+ reachable from a ref, with uploadpack.allowReachableSHA1InWant
+ configuration variable.
+
+ * "git cat-file --batch(-check)" learned the "--follow-symlinks"
+ option that follows an in-tree symbolic link when asked about an
+ object via extended SHA-1 syntax, e.g. HEAD:RelNotes that points at
+ Documentation/RelNotes/2.5.0.txt. With the new option, the command
+ behaves as if HEAD:Documentation/RelNotes/2.5.0.txt was given as
+ input instead.
+
+ * "git send-email" learned the alias file format used by the sendmail
+ program (in an abbreviated form).
+
Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
- * "unsigned char [20]" used thoughout the code to represent object
+ * "unsigned char [20]" used throughout the code to represent object
names are being converted into a semi-opaque "struct object_id".
This effort is expected to interfere with other topics in flight,
but hopefully will give us one extra level of abstraction in the
to read packed-refs file revealed that the former is unacceptably
inefficient.
+ * The refs API uses ref_lock struct which had its own "int fd", even
+ though the same file descriptor was in the lock struct it contains.
+ Clean-up the code to lose this redundant field.
+
+ * Add the "--allow-unknown-type" option to "cat-file" to allow
+ inspecting loose objects of an experimental or a broken type.
+
* Many long-running operations show progress eye-candy, even when
they are later backgrounded. Hide the eye-candy when the process
is sent to the background instead.
(merge 9a9a41d lm/squelch-bg-progress later to maint).
+ * There was a dead code that used to handle "git pull --tags" and
+ show special-cased error message, which was made irrelevant when
+ the semantics of the option changed back in Git 1.9 days.
+ (merge 19d122b pt/pull-tags-error-diag later to maint).
+
+ * for_each_ref() callback functions were taught to name the objects
+ not with "unsigned char sha1[20]" but with "struct object_id".
+
+ * Error reporting mechanism used in "refs" API has been made more
+ consistent.
+
+ * "git pull" has more test coverage now.
+
Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups.
track are contained in this release (see the maintenance releases'
notes for details).
+ * Git 2.4 broke setting verbosity and progress levels on "git clone"
+ with native transports.
+ (merge 822f0c4 mh/clone-verbosity-fix later to maint).
+
+ * "git add -e" did not allow the user to abort the operation by
+ killing the editor.
+ (merge cb64800 jk/add-e-kill-editor later to maint).
+
* Memory usage of "git index-pack" has been trimmed by tens of
per-cent.
- (merge c6458e6 nd/slim-index-pack-memory-usage later to maint).
+ (merge a78c5b3 nd/slim-index-pack-memory-usage later to maint).
* "git rev-list --objects $old --not --all" to see if everything that
is reachable from $old is already connected to the existing refs
* Some time ago, "git blame" (incorrectly) lost the convert_to_git()
call when synthesizing a fake "tip" commit that represents the
state in the working tree, which broke folks who record the history
- with LF line ending to make their project portabile across
- platforms while terminating lines in their working tree files with
- CRLF for their platform.
+ with LF line ending to make their project portable across platforms
+ while terminating lines in their working tree files with CRLF for
+ their platform.
(merge 4bf256d tb/blame-resurrect-convert-to-git later to maint).
* We avoid setting core.worktree when the repository location is the
(merge 27547e5 cn/bom-in-gitignore later to maint).
* a few helper scripts in the test suite did not report errors
- correcty.
+ correctly.
(merge de248e9 ep/fix-test-lib-functions-report later to maint).
* The default $HOME/.gitconfig file created upon "git config --global"
directory, instead of refusing to run.
(merge 0615173 jc/diff-no-index-d-f later to maint).
+ * "git rebase -i" moved the "current" command from "todo" to "done" a
+ bit too prematurely, losing a step when a "pick" did not even start.
+ (merge 8cbc57c ph/rebase-i-redo later to maint).
+
+ * The connection initiation code for "ssh" transport tried to absorb
+ differences between the stock "ssh" and Putty-supplied "plink" and
+ its derivatives, but the logic to tell that we are using "plink"
+ variants were too loose and falsely triggered when "plink" appeared
+ anywhere in the path (e.g. "/home/me/bin/uplink/ssh").
+ (merge baaf233 bc/connect-plink later to maint).
+
+ * "git stash pop/apply" forgot to make sure that not just the working
+ tree is clean but also the index is clean. The latter is important
+ as a stash application can conflict and the index will be used for
+ conflict resolution.
+ (merge ed178ef jk/stash-require-clean-index later to maint).
+
+ * We have prepended $GIT_EXEC_PATH and the path "git" is installed in
+ (typically "/usr/bin") to $PATH when invoking subprograms and hooks
+ for almost eternity, but the original use case the latter tried to
+ support was semi-bogus (i.e. install git to /opt/foo/git and run it
+ without having /opt/foo on $PATH), and more importantly it has
+ become less and less relevant as Git grew more mainstream (i.e. the
+ users would _want_ to have it on their $PATH). Stop prepending the
+ path in which "git" is installed to users' $PATH, as that would
+ interfere the command search order people depend on (e.g. they may
+ not like versions of programs that are unrelated to Git in /usr/bin
+ and want to override them by having different ones in /usr/local/bin
+ and have the latter directory earlier in their $PATH).
+ (merge a0b4507 jk/git-no-more-argv0-path-munging later to maint).
+
+ * core.excludesfile (defaulting to $XDG_HOME/git/ignore) is supposed
+ to be overridden by repository-specific .git/info/exclude file, but
+ the order was swapped from the beginning. This belatedly fixes it.
+ (merge 099d2d8 jc/gitignore-precedence later to maint).
+
+ * After "git add -N", the path appeared in output of "git diff HEAD"
+ and "git diff --cached HEAD", leading "git status" to classify it
+ as "Changes to be committed". Such a path, however, is not yet to
+ be scheduled to be committed. "git diff" showed the change to the
+ path as modification, not as a "new file", in the header of its
+ output.
+
+ Treat such paths as "yet to be added to the index but Git already
+ know about them"; "git diff HEAD" and "git diff --cached HEAD"
+ should not talk about them, and "git diff" should show them as new
+ files yet to be added to the index.
+ (merge d95d728 nd/diff-i-t-a later to maint).
+
+ * There was a commented-out (instead of being marked to expect
+ failure) test that documented a breakage that was fixed since the
+ test was written; turn it into a proper test.
+ (merge 66d2e04 sb/t1020-cleanup later to maint).
+
+ * The "log --decorate" enhancement in Git 2.4 that shows the commit
+ at the tip of the current branch e.g. "HEAD -> master", did not
+ work with --decorate=full.
+ (merge 429ad20 mg/log-decorate-HEAD later to maint).
+
+ * The ref API did not handle cases where 'refs/heads/xyzzy/frotz' is
+ removed at the same time as 'refs/heads/xyzzy' is added (or vice
+ versa) very well.
+ (merge c628edf mh/ref-directory-file later to maint).
+
+ * Multi-ref transaction support we merged a few releases ago
+ unnecessarily kept many file descriptors open, risking to fail with
+ resource exhaustion. This is for 2.4.x track.
+ (merge 185ce3a mh/write-refs-sooner-2.4 later to maint).
+
+ * "git bundle verify" did not diagnose extra parameters on the
+ command line.
+ (merge 7886cfa ps/bundle-verify-arg later to maint).
+
+ * Various documentation mark-up fixes to make the output more
+ consistent in general and also make AsciiDoctor (an alternative
+ formatter) happier.
+ (merge d0258b9 jk/asciidoc-markup-fix later to maint).
+ (merge ad3967a jk/stripspace-asciidoctor-fix later to maint).
+ (merge 975e382 ja/tutorial-asciidoctor-fix later to maint).
+
+ * The code to read pack-bitmap wanted to allocate a few hundred
+ pointers to a structure, but by mistake allocated and leaked memory
+ enough to hold that many actual structures. Correct the allocation
+ size and also have it on stack, as it is small enough.
+ (merge 599dc76 rs/plug-leak-in-pack-bitmaps later to maint).
+
+ * The pull.ff configuration was supposed to override the merge.ff
+ configuration, but it didn't.
+ (merge db9bb28 pt/pull-ff-vs-merge-ff later to maint).
+
+ * "git pull --log" and "git pull --no-log" worked as expected, but
+ "git pull --log=20" did not.
+ (merge 5061a44 pt/pull-log-n later to maint).
+
+ * "git rerere forget" in a repository without rerere enabled gave a
+ cryptic error message; it should be a silent no-op instead.
+ (merge 0544574 jk/rerere-forget-check-enabled later to maint).
+
+ * "git rebase -i" fired post-rewrite hook when it shouldn't (namely,
+ when it was told to stop sequencing with 'exec' insn).
+ (merge 141ff8f mm/rebase-i-post-rewrite-exec later to maint).
+
+ * Clarify that "log --raw" and "log --format=raw" are unrelated
+ concepts.
+ (merge 92de921 mm/log-format-raw-doc later to maint).
+
+ * Make "git stash something --help" error out, so that users can
+ safely say "git stash drop --help".
+ (merge 5ba2831 jk/stash-options later to maint).
+
+ * The clean/smudge interface did not work well when filtering an
+ empty contents (failed and then passed the empty input through).
+ It can be argued that a filter that produces anything but empty for
+ an empty input is nonsense, but if the user wants to do strange
+ things, then why not?
+ (merge f6a1e1e jh/filter-empty-contents later to maint).
+
+ * Communication between the HTTP server and http_backend process can
+ lead to a dead-lock when relaying a large ref negotiation request.
+ Diagnose the situation better, and mitigate it by reading such a
+ request first into core (to a reasonable limit).
+ (merge 636614f jk/http-backend-deadlock later to maint).
+
+ * "git clean pathspec..." tried to lstat(2) and complain even for
+ paths outside the given pathspec.
+ (merge 838d6a9 dt/clean-pathspec-filter-then-lstat later to maint).
+
+ * Recent "git prune" traverses young unreachable objects to safekeep
+ old objects in the reachability chain from them, which sometimes
+ caused error messages that are unnecessarily alarming.
+ (merge ce4e7b2 jk/squelch-missing-link-warning-for-unreachable later to maint).
+
+ * The configuration reader/writer uses mmap(2) interface to access
+ the files; when we find a directory, it barfed with "Out of memory?".
+ (merge 9ca0aaf jk/diagnose-config-mmap-failure later to maint).
+
+ * "color.diff.plain" was a misnomer; give it 'color.diff.context' as
+ a more logical synonym.
+ (merge 8dbf3eb jk/color-diff-plain-is-context later to maint).
+
+ * The setup code used to die when core.bare and core.worktree are set
+ inconsistently, even for commands that do not need working tree.
+ (merge fada767 jk/die-on-bogus-worktree-late later to maint).
+
* Code cleanups and documentation updates.
(merge 0269f96 mm/usage-log-l-can-take-regex later to maint).
(merge 64f2589 nd/t1509-chroot-test later to maint).
- (merge f86a374 sb/test-bitmap-free-at-end later to maint).
+ (merge d201a1e sb/test-bitmap-free-at-end later to maint).
(merge 05bfc7d sb/line-log-plug-pairdiff-leak later to maint).
(merge 846e5df pt/xdg-config-path later to maint).
(merge 1154aa4 jc/plug-fmt-merge-msg-leak later to maint).
(merge 319b678 jk/sha1-file-reduce-useless-warnings later to maint).
+ (merge 9a35c14 fg/document-commit-message-stripping later to maint).
+ (merge bbf431c ps/doc-packfile-vs-pack-file later to maint).
+ (merge 309a9e3 jk/skip-http-tests-under-no-curl later to maint).
+ (merge ccd593c dl/branch-error-message later to maint).
+ (merge 22570b6 rs/janitorial later to maint).
+ (merge 5c2a581 mc/commit-doc-grammofix later to maint).
+ (merge ce41720 ah/usage-strings later to maint).
+ (merge e6a268c sb/glossary-submodule later to maint).
+ (merge ec48a76 sb/submodule-doc-intro later to maint).
+ (merge 14f8b9b jk/clone-dissociate later to maint).
+ (merge 055c7e9 sb/pack-protocol-mention-smart-http later to maint).
+ (merge 7c37a5d jk/make-fix-dependencies later to maint).
+ (merge fc0aa39 sg/merge-summary-config later to maint).