-GIT v1.6.6 Release Notes
+Git v1.6.6 Release Notes
========================
-In this release, "git fsck" defaults to "git fsck --full" and checks
-packfiles, and because of this it will take much longer to complete
-than before. If you prefer a quicker check only on loose objects (the
-old default), you can say "git fsck --no-full". This has been
-supported by 1.5.4 and newer versions of git, so it is safe to write
-it in your script even if you use slightly older git on some of your
-machines.
+Notes on behaviour change
+-------------------------
+
+ * In this release, "git fsck" defaults to "git fsck --full" and
+ checks packfiles, and because of this it will take much longer to
+ complete than before. If you prefer a quicker check only on loose
+ objects (the old default), you can say "git fsck --no-full". This
+ has been supported by 1.5.4 and newer versions of git, so it is
+ safe to write it in your script even if you use slightly older git
+ on some of your machines.
+
+Preparing yourselves for compatibility issues in 1.7.0
+------------------------------------------------------
+
+In git 1.7.0, which is planned to be the release after 1.6.6, there will
+be a handful of behaviour changes that will break backward compatibility.
+
+These changes were discussed long time ago and existing behaviours have
+been identified as more problematic to the userbase than keeping them for
+the sake of backward compatibility.
+
+When necessary, transition strategy for existing users has been designed
+not to force them running around setting configuration variables and
+updating their scripts in order to either keep the traditional behaviour
+or use the new behaviour on the day their sysadmin decides to install
+the new version of git. When we switched from "git-foo" to "git foo" in
+1.6.0, even though the change had been advertised and the transition
+guide had been provided for a very long time, the users procrastinated
+during the entire transtion period, and ended up panicking on the day
+their sysadmins updated their git installation. We tried very hard to
+avoid repeating that unpleasantness.
+
+For changes decided to be in 1.7.0, we have been much louder to strongly
+discourage such procrastination. If you have been using recent versions
+of git, you would have already seen warnings issued when you exercised
+features whose behaviour will change, with the instruction on how to
+keep the existing behaviour if you want to. You hopefully should be
+well prepared already.
+
+Of course, we have also given "this and that will change in 1.7.0;
+prepare yourselves" warnings in the release notes and announcement
+messages. Let's see how well users will fare this time.
+
+ * "git push" into a branch that is currently checked out (i.e. pointed by
+ HEAD in a repository that is not bare) will be refused by default.
+
+ Similarly, "git push $there :$killed" to delete the branch $killed
+ in a remote repository $there, when $killed branch is the current
+ branch pointed at by its HEAD, will be refused by default.
+
+ Setting the configuration variables receive.denyCurrentBranch and
+ receive.denyDeleteCurrent to 'ignore' in the receiving repository
+ can be used to override these safety features. Versions of git
+ since 1.6.2 have issued a loud warning when you tried to do them
+ without setting the configuration, so repositories of people who
+ still need to be able to perform such a push should already have
+ been future proofed.
+
+ Please refer to:
+
+ http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq#non-bare
+ http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/107758/focus=108007
+
+ for more details on the reason why this change is needed and the
+ transition process that already took place so far.
+
+ * "git send-email" will not make deep threads by default when sending a
+ patch series with more than two messages. All messages will be sent
+ as a reply to the first message, i.e. cover letter. Git 1.6.6 (this
+ release) will issue a warning about the upcoming default change, when
+ it uses the traditional "deep threading" behaviour as the built-in
+ default. To squelch the warning but still use the "deep threading"
+ behaviour, give --chain-reply-to option or set sendemail.chainreplyto
+ to true.
+
+ It has been possible to configure send-email to send "shallow thread"
+ by setting sendemail.chainreplyto configuration variable to false.
+ The only thing 1.7.0 release will do is to change the default when
+ you haven't configured that variable.
+
+ * "git status" will not be "git commit --dry-run". This change does not
+ affect you if you run the command without pathspec.
+
+ Nobody sane found the current behaviour of "git status Makefile" useful
+ nor meaningful, and it confused users. "git commit --dry-run" has been
+ provided as a way to get the current behaviour of this command since
+ 1.6.5.
+
+ * "git diff" traditionally treated various "ignore whitespace" options
+ only as a way to filter the patch output. "git diff --exit-code -b"
+ exited with non-zero status even if all changes were about changing the
+ ammount of whitespace and nothing else. and "git diff -b" showed the
+ "diff --git" header line for such a change without patch text.
+
+ In 1.7.0, the "ignore whitespaces" will affect the semantics of the
+ diff operation itself. A change that does not affect anything but
+ whitespaces will be reported with zero exit status when run with
+ --exit-code, and there will not be "diff --git" header for such a
+ change.
-In git 1.7.0, which is planned to be the release after 1.6.6, "git
-push" into a branch that is currently checked out will be refused by
-default.
-
-You can choose what should happen upon such a push by setting the
-configuration variable receive.denyCurrentBranch in the receiving
-repository.
-
-Also, "git push $there :$killed" to delete the branch $killed in a remote
-repository $there, when $killed branch is the current branch pointed at by
-its HEAD, will be refused by default.
-
-You can choose what should happen upon such a push by setting the
-configuration variable receive.denyDeleteCurrent in the receiving
-repository.
-
-To ease the transition plan, the receiving repository of such a
-push running this release will issue a big warning when the
-configuration variable is missing. Please refer to:
-
- http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitFaq#non-bare
- http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/107758/focus=108007
-
-for more details on the reason why this change is needed and the
-transition plan.
Updates since v1.6.5
--------------------
(subsystems)
+ * various git-gui updates including new translations, wm states, etc.
+
+ * git-svn updates.
+
+ * "git fetch" over http learned a new mode that is different from the
+ traditional "dumb commit walker".
+
(portability)
+ * imap-send can be built on mingw port.
+
(performance)
+ * "git diff -B" has smaller memory footprint.
+
(usability, bells and whistles)
* The object replace mechanism can be bypassed with --no-replace-objects
global option given to the "git" program.
+ * In configuration files, a few variables that name paths can begin with ~/
+ and ~username/ and they are expanded as expected.
+
+ * "git subcmd -h" now shows short usage help for many more subcommands.
+
+ * "git bisect reset" can reset to an arbitrary commit.
+
+ * "git checkout frotz" when there is no local branch "frotz" but there
+ is only one remote tracking branch "frotz" is taken as a request to
+ start the named branch at the corresponding remote tracking branch.
+
+ * "git commit -c/-C/--amend" can be told with a new "--reset-author" option
+ to ignore authorship information in the commit it is taking the message
+ from.
+
+ * "git describe" can be told to add "-dirty" suffix with "--dirty" option.
+
+ * "git diff" learned --submodule option to show a list of one-line logs
+ instead of differences between the commit object names.
+
+ * "git diff" learned to honor diff.color.func configuration to paint
+ function name hint printed on the hunk header "@@ -j,k +l,m @@" line
+ in the specified color.
+
+ * "git fetch" learned --all and --multiple options, to run fetch from
+ many repositories, and --prune option to remove remote tracking
+ branches that went stale. These make "git remote update" and "git
+ remote prune" less necessary (there is no plan to remove "remote
+ update" nor "remote prune", though).
+
* "git fsck" by default checks the packfiles (i.e. "--full" is the
default); you can turn it off with "git fsck --no-full".
+ * "git grep" can use -F (fixed strings) and -i (ignore case) together.
+
* import-tars contributed fast-import frontend learned more types of
compressed tarballs.
* "git log --decorate" shows the location of HEAD as well.
+ * "git log" and "git rev-list" learned to take revs and pathspecs from
+ the standard input with the new "--stdin" option.
+
+ * "--pretty=format" option to "log" family of commands learned:
+
+ . to wrap text with the "%w()" specifier.
+ . to show reflog information with "%g[sdD]" specifier.
+
+ * "git notes" command to annotate existing commits.
+
+ * "git merge" (and "git pull") learned --ff-only option to make it fail
+ if the merge does not result in a fast-forward.
+
+ * The ancient "git merge <message> HEAD <branch>..." syntax will be
+ removed in later versions of git. A warning is given and tells
+ users to use the "git merge -m <message> <branch>..." instead.
+
+ * "git mergetool" learned to use p4merge.
+
* "git rebase -i" learned "reword" that acts like "edit" but immediately
starts an editor to tweak the log message without returning control to
the shell, which is done by "edit" to give an opportunity to tweak the
contents.
+ * "git send-email" can be told with "--envelope-sender=auto" to use the
+ same address as "From:" address as the envelope sender address.
+
+ * "git send-email" will issue a warning when it defaults to the
+ --chain-reply-to behaviour without being told by the user and
+ instructs to prepare for the change of the default in 1.7.0 release.
+
+ * In "git submodule add <repository> <path>", <path> is now optional and
+ inferred from <repository> the same way "git clone <repository>" does.
+
+ * "git svn" learned to read SVN 1.5+ and SVK merge tickets.
+
+ * "gitweb" can optionally render its "blame" output incrementally (this
+ requires JavaScript on the client side).
+
* Author names shown in gitweb output are links to search commits by the
author.
All of the fixes in v1.6.5.X maintenance series are included in this
release, unless otherwise noted.
- * "git apply" and "git diff" (including patch output from "git log -p")
- now flags trailing blank lines as whitespace errors correctly (only
- "apply --whitespace=fix" stripped them but "apply --whitespace=warn"
- did not even warn).
-
- * Two whitespace error classes, 'blank-at-eof' and 'blank-at-eol', have
- been introduced (settable by core.whitespace configuration variable and
- whitespace attribute). The 'trailing-space' whitespace error class has
- become a short-hand to cover both of these and there is no behaviour
- change for existing set-ups.
-
- * "git cvsimport" did not work well when it is fed filenames from the
- command line and is not started at the top of the work tree. We should
- backport this by merging f6fdbb6 (cvsimport: fix relative argument
- filenames, 2009-10-19).
+ * Enumeration of available merge strategies iterated over the list of
+ commands in a wrong way, sometimes producing an incorrect result.
+ Will backport by merging ed87465 (builtin-merge.c: call
+ exclude_cmds() correctly., 2009-11-25).
- * The way gitweb escapes its CGI parameters were broken especially when
- the parameter was a UTF-8 string. We may want to backport this to
- 1.6.5.X series by merging 452e225 (gitweb: fix esc_param, 2009-10-13).
+ * "git format-patch revisions... -- path" issued an incorrect error
+ message that suggested to use "--" on the command line when path
+ does not exist in the current work tree (it is a separate matter if
+ it makes sense to limit format-patch with pathspecs like that
+ without using the --full-diff option). Will backport by merging
+ 7e93d3b (format-patch: add test for parsing of "--", 2009-11-26).
- * gitweb used to show 'patch' link for merge commits but the output from
- it is not usable to feed "git am" with. We may want to backport this
- to 1.6.5.X series by merging 1655c98 (gitweb: Do not show 'patch' link
- for merge commits, 2009-10-09).
+ * "git shortlog" did not honor the "encoding" header embedded in the
+ commit object like "git log" did. Will backport by merging 79f7ca0
+ (shortlog: respect commit encoding, 2009-11-25).
---
exec >/var/tmp/1
echo O=$(git describe master)
-O=v1.6.5.2-73-g9b12444
+O=v1.6.6-rc0-96-gb5d4cf2
git shortlog --no-merges $O..master --not maint