branch: deprecate "-l" option

The "-l" option is short for "--create-reflog". This has caused much confusion over the years. Most people expect it to work as "--list", because that would match the other "mode" options like -d/--delete and -m/--move, as well as the similar -l/--list option of git-tag. Adding to the confusion, using "-l" _appears_ to work as "--list" in some cases: $ git branch -l * master because the branch command defaults to listing (so even trying to specify --list in the command above is redundant). But that may bite the user later when they add a pattern, like: $ git branch -l foo which does not return an empty list, but in fact creates a new branch (with a reflog, naturally) called "foo". It's also probably quite uncommon for people to actually use "-l" to create a reflog. Since 0bee591869 (Enable reflogs by default in any repository with a working directory., 2006-12-14), this is the default in non-bare repositories. So it's rather unfortunate that the feature squats on the short-and-sweet "-l" (which was only added in 3a4b3f269c (Create/delete branch ref logs., 2006-05-19), meaning there were only 7 months where it was actually useful). Let's deprecate "-l" in hopes of eventually re-purposing it to "--list". Note that we issue the warning only when we're not in list mode. This means that people for whom it works as a happy accident, namely: $ git branch -l master won't see the warning at all. And when we eventually switch to it meaning "--list", that will just continue to work. We do the issue the warning for these important cases: - when we are actually creating a branch, in case the user really did mean it as "--create-reflog" - when we are in some _other_ mode, like deletion. There the "-l" is a noop for now, but it will eventually conflict with any other mode request, and the user should be told that this is changing. Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

Jeff King committed Jun 22, 2018 at 05:24 UTC 055930bc8960c303ece01d9a34740f25a2a6bba6
2 files changed +23 -2
Documentation/git-branch.txt
+2 -1
@@ -91,7 +91,6 @@ OPTIONS
91 -D::
92 Shortcut for `--delete --force`.
93
94 --l::
94 --create-reflog::
95 Create the branch's reflog. This activates recording of
96 all changes made to the branch ref, enabling use of date
@@ -101,6 +100,8 @@ OPTIONS
100 The negated form `--no-create-reflog` only overrides an earlier
101 `--create-reflog`, but currently does not negate the setting of
102 `core.logAllRefUpdates`.
103 ++
104 +The `-l` option is a deprecated synonym for `--create-reflog`.
105
106 -f::
107 --force::
builtin/branch.c
+21 -1
@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ static const char * const builtin_branch_usage[] = {
36
37 static const char *head;
38 static struct object_id head_oid;
39 +static int used_deprecated_reflog_option;
40
41 static int branch_use_color = -1;
42 static char branch_colors[][COLOR_MAXLEN] = {
@@ -573,6 +574,14 @@ static int edit_branch_description(const char *branch_name)
574 return 0;
575 }
576
577 +static int deprecated_reflog_option_cb(const struct option *opt,
578 + const char *arg, int unset)
579 +{
580 + used_deprecated_reflog_option = 1;
581 + *(int *)opt->value = !unset;
582 + return 0;
583 +}
584 +
585 int cmd_branch(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
586 {
587 int delete = 0, rename = 0, copy = 0, force = 0, list = 0;
@@ -615,7 +624,13 @@ int cmd_branch(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
624 OPT_BIT('c', "copy", &copy, N_("copy a branch and its reflog"), 1),
625 OPT_BIT('C', NULL, &copy, N_("copy a branch, even if target exists"), 2),
626 OPT_BOOL(0, "list", &list, N_("list branch names")),
618 - OPT_BOOL('l', "create-reflog", &reflog, N_("create the branch's reflog")),
627 + OPT_BOOL(0, "create-reflog", &reflog, N_("create the branch's reflog")),
628 + {
629 + OPTION_CALLBACK, 'l', NULL, &reflog, NULL,
630 + N_("deprecated synonym for --create-reflog"),
631 + PARSE_OPT_NOARG | PARSE_OPT_HIDDEN,
632 + deprecated_reflog_option_cb
633 + },
634 OPT_BOOL(0, "edit-description", &edit_description,
635 N_("edit the description for the branch")),
636 OPT__FORCE(&force, N_("force creation, move/rename, deletion"), PARSE_OPT_NOCOMPLETE),
@@ -688,6 +703,11 @@ int cmd_branch(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
703 if (list)
704 setup_auto_pager("branch", 1);
705
706 + if (used_deprecated_reflog_option && !list) {
707 + warning("the '-l' alias for '--create-reflog' is deprecated;");
708 + warning("it will be removed in a future version of Git");
709 + }
710 +
711 if (delete) {
712 if (!argc)
713 die(_("branch name required"));