Git 2.4 Release Notes
=====================
+Backward compatibility warning(s)
+---------------------------------
+
+This release has a few changes in the user-visible output from
+Porcelain commands, which the users may want to be aware of.
+
+ * Output from "git log --decorate" (and "%d" format specifier used in
+ the userformat "--format=<string>" 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.
+
+ $ 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
+ shown as:
+
+ $ git log --decorate -1 master
+ commit bdb0f6788fa5e3cacc4315e9ff318a27b2676ff4 (HEAD -> master)
+ ...
+
+ * The phrasing "git branch" uses to describe a detached HEAD has been
+ updated to match that of "git status":
+
+ - When the HEAD is at the same commit as it was originally
+ detached, they now both show "detached at <commit object name>".
+
+ - When the HEAD has moved since it was originally detached,
+ they now both show "detached from <commit object name>".
+
+ Earlier "git branch" always used "from"
+
+
Updates since v2.3
------------------
* We did not check the curl library version before using
CURLOPT_PROXYAUTH feature that may not exist.
+ * We now detect number of CPUs on older BSD-derived systems.
+
+ * Portability fixes and workarounds for shell scripts have been added
+ to help BSD-derived systems.
+
UI, Workflows & Features
* "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.
+
+ This is a potentially backward-incompatible change.
+
+ * "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.
+
+ * "git -C '' subcmd" refused to work in the current directory, unlike
+ "cd ''" which silently behaves as a no-op.
+ (merge 6a536e2 kn/git-cd-to-empty later to maint).
+
+ * The versionsort.prerelease configuration variable can be used to
+ specify that 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 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.
+
Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
* Simplify the ref transaction API around how "the ref should be
pointing at this object" is specified.
+ * Code in "git daemon" to parse out and hold hostnames used in
+ request interpolation has been simplified.
+
+ * "git push" codepath has been restructured 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.
+
+ * 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
+ catch such a mistake more easily.
+
Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups.
(merge 35840a3 jc/conf-var-doc later to maint).
* An earlier workaround to squelch unhelpful deprecation warnings
- from the complier on Mac OSX unnecessarily set minimum required
+ from the compiler on Mac OSX unnecessarily set 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).
* A corrupt input to "git diff -M" used to cause it to segfault.
(merge 4d6be03 jk/diffcore-rename-duplicate later to maint).
- * Code cleanups and documentaiton updates.
+ * Certain builds of GPG triggered false breakages in a test.
+ (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.
+ (merge dcd01ea km/imap-send-libcurl-options later to maint).
+
+ * "git log --decorate" did not reset colors correctly around the
+ branch names.
+ (merge 5ee8758 jc/decorate-leaky-separator-color later to maint).
+
+ * The code that reads from the ctags file in the completion script
+ (in contrib/) did not spell ${param/pattern/string} substitution
+ correctly, which happened to work with bash but not with zsh.
+ (merge db8d750 js/completion-ctags-pattern-substitution-fix later to maint).
+
+ * The transfer.hiderefs support did not quite work for smart-http
+ 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.
+ (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.
+ (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
+ 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.
+ (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.
+ (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.
+ (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).
+
+ * Code cleanups and documentation updates.
(merge 2ce63e9 rs/simple-cleanups later to maint).
(merge 33baa69 rj/no-xopen-source-for-cygwin later to maint).
(merge 817d03e jc/diff-test-updates later to maint).
(merge 53e53c7 sg/completion-remote later to maint).
(merge 8fa7975 ak/git-done-help-cleanup later to maint).
(merge 9a6f128 rs/deflate-init-cleanup later to maint).
+ (merge 6f75d45 rs/use-isxdigit later to maint).
+ (merge 376e4b3 jk/test-annoyances later to maint).
+ (merge 7032054 nd/doc-git-index-version later to maint).
+ (merge e869c5e tg/test-index-v4 later to maint).
+ (merge 599d223 jk/simplify-csum-file-sha1fd-check later to maint).
+ (merge 260d585 sg/completion-gitcomp-nl-for-refs later to maint).
+ (merge 777c55a jc/report-path-error-to-dir later to maint).
+ (merge fddfaf8 ph/push-doc-cas later to maint).
+ (merge 129260c ss/pull-rebase-preserve later to maint).