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 * "git diff" learned, "--anchored", a variant of the "--patience" 111 algorithm, to which the user can specify which 'unique' line to be 112 used as anchoring points. 113 114 * The way "git worktree add" determines what branch to create from 115 where and checkout in the new worktree has been updated a bit. 116 117 * Ancient part of codebase still shows dots after an abbreviated 118 object name just to show that it is not a full object name, but 119 these ellipses are confusing to people who newly discovered Git 120 who are used to seeing abbreviated object names and find them 121 confusing with the range syntax. 122 123 * With a configuration variable rebase.abbreviateCommands set, 124 "git rebase -i" produces the todo list with a single-letter 125 command names. 126 127 * "git worktree add" learned to run the post-checkout hook, just like 128 "git checkout" does, after the initial checkout. 129 130 * "git svn" has been updated to strip CRs in the commit messages, as 131 recent versions of Subversion rejects them. 132 133 * "git imap-send" did not correctly quote the folder name when 134 making a request to the server, which has been corrected. 135 136 * Error messages from "git rebase" have been somewhat cleaned up. 137 138 * Git has been taught to support an https:// URL used for http.proxy 139 when using recent versions of libcurl. 140 141 * "git merge" learned to pay attention to merge.verifySignatures 142 configuration variable and pretend as if '--verify-signatures' 143 option was given from the command line. 144 145 * "git describe" was taught to dig trees deeper to find a 146 <commit-ish>:<path> that refers to a given blob object. 147 148 149Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc. 150 151 * An earlier update made it possible to use an on-stack in-core 152 lockfile structure (as opposed to having to deliberately leak an 153 on-heap one). Many codepaths have been updated to take advantage 154 of this new facility. 155 156 * Calling cmd_foo() as if it is a general purpose helper function is 157 a no-no. Correct two instances of such to set an example. 158 159 * We try to see if somebody runs our test suite with a shell that 160 does not support "local" like bash/dash does. 161 162 * An early part of piece-by-piece rewrite of "git bisect" in C. 163 164 * GSoC to piece-by-piece rewrite "git submodule" in C. 165 166 * Optimize the code to find shortest unique prefix of object names. 167 168 * Pathspec-limited revision traversal was taught not to keep finding 169 unneeded differences once it knows two trees are different inside 170 given pathspec. 171 172 * Conversion from uchar[20] to struct object_id continues. 173 174 * Code cleanup. 175 176 * A single-word "unsigned flags" in the diff options is being split 177 into a structure with many bitfields. 178 179 * TravisCI build updates. 180 181 * Parts of a test to drive the long-running content filter interface 182 has been split into its own module, hopefully to eventually become 183 reusable. 184 185 * Drop (perhaps overly cautious) sanity check before using the index 186 read from the filesystem at runtime. 187 188 * The build procedure has been taught to avoid some unnecessary 189 instability in the build products. 190 191 * A new mechanism to upgrade the wire protocol in place is proposed 192 and demonstrated that it works with the older versions of Git 193 without harming them. 194 195 * An infrastructure to define what hash function is used in Git is 196 introduced, and an effort to plumb that throughout various 197 codepaths has been started. 198 199 * The code to iterate over loose object files got optimized. 200 201 * An internal function that was left for backward compatibility has 202 been removed, as there is no remaining callers. 203 204 * Historically, the diff machinery for rename detection had a 205 hardcoded limit of 32k paths; this is being lifted to allow users 206 trade cycles with a (possibly) easier to read result. 207 208 * The tracing infrastructure has been optimized for cases where no 209 tracing is requested. 210 211 * In preparation for implementing narrow/partial clone, the object 212 walking machinery has been taught a way to tell it to "filter" some 213 objects from enumeration. 214 215 * A few structures and variables that are implementation details of 216 the decorate API have been renamed and then the API got documented 217 better. 218 219 * Assorted updates for TravisCI integration. 220 (merge 4f26366679 sg/travis-fixes later to maint). 221 222 * Introduce a helper to simplify code to parse a common pattern that 223 expects either "--key" or "--key=<something>". 224 225 * "git version --build-options" learned to report the host CPU and 226 the exact commit object name the binary was built from. 227 228Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups. 229 230 231Fixes since v2.15 232----------------- 233 234 * "auto" as a value for the columnar output configuration ought to 235 judge "is the output consumed by humans?" with the same criteria as 236 "auto" for coloured output configuration, i.e. either the standard 237 output stream is going to tty, or a pager is in use. We forgot the 238 latter, which has been fixed. 239 240 * The experimental "color moved lines differently in diff output" 241 feature was buggy around "ignore whitespace changes" edges, which 242 has been corrected. 243 244 * Instead of using custom line comparison and hashing functions to 245 implement "moved lines" coloring in the diff output, use the pair 246 of these functions from lower-layer xdiff/ code. 247 248 * Some codepaths did not check for errors when asking what branch the 249 HEAD points at, which have been fixed. 250 251 * "git commit", after making a commit, did not check for errors when 252 asking on what branch it made the commit, which has been corrected. 253 254 * "git status --ignored -u" did not stop at a working tree of a 255 separate project that is embedded in an ignored directory and 256 listed files in that other project, instead of just showing the 257 directory itself as ignored. 258 259 * A broken access to object databases in recent update to "git grep 260 --recurse-submodules" has been fixed. 261 262 * A recent regression in "git rebase -i" that broke execution of git 263 commands from subdirectories via "exec" instruction has been fixed. 264 265 * A (possibly flakey) test fix. 266 267 * "git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}" bit a "BUG()" when run 268 outside a repository for obvious reasons; clarify the documentation 269 and make sure we do not even try to expand the at-mark magic in 270 such a case, but still call the validation logic for branch names. 271 272 * "git fetch --recurse-submodules" now knows that submodules can be 273 moved around in the superproject in addition to getting updated, 274 and finds the ones that need to be fetched accordingly. 275 276 * Command line completion (in contrib/) update. 277 278 * Description of blame.{showroot,blankboundary,showemail,date} 279 configuration variables have been added to "git config --help". 280 281 * After an error from lstat(), diff_populate_filespec() function 282 sometimes still went ahead and used invalid data in struct stat, 283 which has been fixed. 284 285 * UNC paths are also relevant in Cygwin builds and they are now 286 tested just like Mingw builds. 287 288 * Correct start-up sequence so that a repository could be placed 289 immediately under the root directory again (which was broken at 290 around Git 2.13). 291 292 * The credential helper for libsecret (in contrib/) has been improved 293 to allow possibly prompting the end user to unlock secrets that are 294 currently locked (otherwise the secrets may not be loaded). 295 296 * MinGW updates. 297 298 * Error checking in "git imap-send" for empty response has been 299 improved. 300 301 * Recent update to the refs infrastructure implementation started 302 rewriting packed-refs file more often than before; this has been 303 optimized again for most trivial cases. 304 305 * Some error messages did not quote filenames shown in it, which have 306 been fixed. 307 308 * "git rebase -i" recently started misbehaving when a submodule that 309 is configured with 'submodule.<name>.ignore' is dirty; this has 310 been corrected. 311 312 * Building with NO_LIBPCRE1_JIT did not disable it, which has been fixed. 313 314 * We used to add an empty alternate object database to the system 315 that does not help anything; it has been corrected. 316 317 * Doc update around use of "format-patch --subject-prefix" etc. 318 319 * A fix for an ancient bug in "git apply --ignore-space-change" codepath. 320 321 * Clarify and enhance documentation for "merge-base --fork-point", as 322 it was clear what it computed but not why/what for. 323 324 * A few scripts (both in production and tests) incorrectly redirected 325 their error output. These have been corrected. 326 327 * "git notes" sent its error message to its standard output stream, 328 which was corrected. 329 330 * The three-way merge performed by "git cherry-pick" was confused 331 when a new submodule was added in the meantime, which has been 332 fixed (or "papered over"). 333 334 * The sequencer machinery (used by "git cherry-pick A..B", and "git 335 rebase -i", among other things) would have lost a commit if stopped 336 due to an unlockable index file, which has been fixed. 337 338 * "git apply --inaccurate-eof" when used with "--ignore-space-change" 339 triggered an internal sanity check, which has been fixed. 340 341 * Command line completion (in contrib/) has been taught about the 342 "--copy" option of "git branch". 343 344 * When "git rebase" prepared a mailbox of changes and fed it to "git 345 am" to replay them, it was confused when a stray "From " happened 346 to be in the log message of one of the replayed changes. This has 347 been corrected. 348 349 * There was a recent semantic mismerge in the codepath to write out a 350 section of a configuration section, which has been corrected. 351 352 * Mentions of "git-rebase" and "git-am" (dashed form) still remained 353 in end-user visible strings emitted by the "git rebase" command; 354 they have been corrected. 355 356 * Contrary to the documentation, "git pull -4/-6 other-args" did not 357 ask the underlying "git fetch" to go over IPv4/IPv6, which has been 358 corrected. 359 360 * "git checkout --recursive" may overwrite and rewind the history of 361 the branch that happens to be checked out in submodule 362 repositories, which might not be desirable. Detach the HEAD but 363 still allow the recursive checkout to succeed in such a case. 364 (merge 57f22bf997 sb/submodule-recursive-checkout-detach-head later to maint). 365 366 * "git branch --set-upstream" has been deprecated and (sort of) 367 removed, as "--set-upstream-to" is the preferred one these days. 368 The documentation still had "--set-upstream" listed on its 369 synopsis section, which has been corrected. 370 (merge a060f3d3d8 tz/branch-doc-remove-set-upstream later to maint). 371 372 * Internally we use 0{40} as a placeholder object name to signal the 373 codepath that there is no such object (e.g. the fast-forward check 374 while "git fetch" stores a new remote-tracking ref says "we know 375 there is no 'old' thing pointed at by the ref, as we are creating 376 it anew" by passing 0{40} for the 'old' side), and expect that a 377 codepath to locate an in-core object to return NULL as a sign that 378 the object does not exist. A look-up for an object that does not 379 exist however is quite costly with a repository with large number 380 of packfiles. This access pattern has been optimized. 381 (merge 87b5e236a1 jk/fewer-pack-rescan later to maint). 382 383 * In addition to "git stash -m message", the command learned to 384 accept "git stash -mmessage" form. 385 (merge 5675473fcb ph/stash-save-m-option-fix later to maint). 386 387 * @{-N} in "git checkout @{-N}" may refer to a detached HEAD state, 388 but the documentation was not clear about it, which has been fixed. 389 (merge 75ce149575 ks/doc-checkout-previous later to maint). 390 391 * A regression in the progress eye-candy was fixed. 392 (merge 9c5951cacf jk/progress-delay-fix later to maint). 393 394 * The code internal to the recursive merge strategy was not fully 395 prepared to see a path that is renamed to try overwriting another 396 path that is only different in case on case insensitive systems. 397 This does not matter in the current code, but will start to matter 398 once the rename detection logic starts taking hints from nearby 399 paths moving to some directory and moves a new path along with them. 400 (merge 4cba2b0108 en/merge-recursive-icase-removal later to maint). 401 402 * An v2.12-era regression in pathspec match logic, which made it look 403 into submodule tree even when it is not desired, has been fixed. 404 (merge eef3df5a93 bw/pathspec-match-submodule-boundary later to maint). 405 406 * Amending commits in git-gui broke the author name that is non-ascii 407 due to incorrect enconding conversion. 408 409 * Recent update to the submodule configuration code broke "diff-tree" 410 by accidentally stopping to read from the index upfront. 411 (merge fd66bcc31f bw/submodule-config-cleanup later to maint). 412 413 * Git shows a message to tell the user that it is waiting for the 414 user to finish editing when spawning an editor, in case the editor 415 opens to a hidden window or somewhere obscure and the user gets 416 lost. 417 (merge abfb04d0c7 ls/editor-waiting-message later to maint). 418 419 * The "safe crlf" check incorrectly triggered for contents that does 420 not use CRLF as line endings, which has been corrected. 421 (merge 649f1f0948 tb/check-crlf-for-safe-crlf later to maint). 422 423 * "git clone --shared" to borrow from a (secondary) worktree did not 424 work, even though "git clone --local" did. Both are now accepted. 425 (merge b3b05971c1 es/clone-shared-worktree later to maint). 426 427 * The build procedure now allows not just the repositories but also 428 the refs to be used to take pre-formatted manpages and html 429 documents to install. 430 (merge 65289e9dcd rb/quick-install-doc later to maint). 431 432 * Update the shell prompt script (in contrib/) to strip trailing CR 433 from strings read from various "state" files. 434 (merge 041fe8fc83 ra/prompt-eread-fix later to maint). 435 436 * "git merge -s recursive" did not correctly abort when the index is 437 dirty, if the merged tree happened to be the same as the current 438 HEAD, which has been fixed. 439 440 * Bytes with high-bit set were encoded incorrectly and made 441 credential helper fail. 442 (merge 4c267f2ae3 jd/fix-strbuf-add-urlencode-bytes later to maint). 443 444 * "git rebase -p -X<option>" did not propagate the option properly 445 down to underlying merge strategy backend. 446 (merge dd6fb0053c js/fix-merge-arg-quoting-in-rebase-p later to maint). 447 448 * "git merge -s recursive" did not correctly abort when the index is 449 dirty, if the merged tree happened to be the same as the current 450 HEAD, which has been fixed. 451 (merge f309e8e768 ew/empty-merge-with-dirty-index-maint later to maint). 452 453 * Other minor doc, test and build updates and code cleanups. 454 (merge 1a1fc2d5b5 rd/man-prune-progress later to maint). 455 (merge 0ba014035a rd/man-reflog-add-n later to maint). 456 (merge e54b63359f rd/doc-notes-prune-fix later to maint). 457 (merge ff4c9b413a sp/doc-info-attributes later to maint). 458 (merge 7db2cbf4f1 jc/receive-pack-hook-doc later to maint). 459 (merge 5a0526264b tg/t-readme-updates later to maint). 460 (merge 5e83cca0b8 jk/no-optional-locks later to maint). 461 (merge 826c778f7c js/hashmap-update-sample later to maint). 462 (merge 176b2d328c sg/setup-doc-update later to maint). 463 (merge 1b09073514 rs/am-builtin-leakfix later to maint). 464 (merge addcf6cfde rs/fmt-merge-msg-string-leak-fix later to maint). 465 (merge c3ff8f6c14 rs/strbuf-read-once-reset-length later to maint). 466 (merge 6b0eb884f9 db/doc-workflows-neuter-the-maintainer later to maint). 467 (merge 8c87bdfb21 jk/cvsimport-quoting later to maint). 468 (merge 176cb979fe rs/fmt-merge-msg-leakfix later to maint). 469 (merge 5a03360e73 tb/delimit-pretty-trailers-args-with-comma later to maint). 470 (merge d0e6326026 ot/pretty later to maint). 471 (merge 44103f4197 sb/test-helper-excludes later to maint). 472 (merge 170078693f jt/transport-no-more-rsync later to maint). 473 (merge c07b3adff1 bw/path-doc later to maint). 474 (merge bf9d7df950 tz/lib-git-svn-svnserve-tests later to maint). 475 (merge dec366c9a8 sr/http-sslverify-config-doc later to maint). 476 (merge 3f824e91c8 jk/test-suite-tracing later to maint). 477 (merge 1feb061701 db/doc-config-section-names-with-bs later to maint). 478 (merge 74dea0e13c jh/memihash-opt later to maint). 479 (merge 2e9fdc795c ma/bisect-leakfix later to maint).