[PATCH/RFC] Clarified how pattern works in documentation to git-show-ref.

[PATCH/RFC] Clarified how pattern works in documentation to git-show-ref.

[Garry Dolley]

Several people in #git, including myself, thought that the following would
show all refs:

  git show-ref '*'

Since that is not how the pattern patching works, clarification was needed
in the documentation.

Signed-off-by: Garry Dolley <gdolley@ucla.edu>
---

I think including a little more info in the docs regarding the pattern would
be helpful.  Comments?

This is my first patch, I tried to follow all the rules in the
SubmittingPatches doc.  If I missed anything, I apologize.

 Documentation/git-show-ref.txt |    6 ++++--
 1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-show-ref.txt b/Documentation/git-show-ref.txt
index 2f173ff..5966450 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-show-ref.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-show-ref.txt
@@ -86,7 +86,8 @@ OPTIONS
 
 <pattern>...::
 
-	Show references matching one or more patterns.
+	Show references matching one or more patterns. The pattern is tail-matched,
+	achored on a '/' boundary; pattern does not accept globs.
 
 OUTPUT
 ------
@@ -127,7 +128,8 @@ use:
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
 This will show "refs/heads/master" but also "refs/remote/other-repo/master",
-if such references exists.
+if such references exists. This will not match "refs/heads/master2", because
+the pattern is tail-matched.
 
 When using the '--verify' flag, the command requires an exact path:
 
-- 
1.6.0.1

Re: [PATCH/RFC] Clarified how pattern works in documentation to git-show-ref.

[Junio C Hamano]

Garry Dolley <gdolley@arpnetworks.com> writes:

> Several people in #git, including myself, thought that the following would
> show all refs:
>
>   git show-ref '*'
>
> Since that is not how the pattern patching works, clarification was needed
> in the documentation.
>
> Signed-off-by: Garry Dolley <gdolley@ucla.edu>
> ---
>
> I think including a little more info in the docs regarding the pattern would
> be helpful.  Comments?

Would be helpful.

It may be worthwhile to know that that "pathspec" limiting done by
revision traversal ("git log", "git rev-list") and diff is also without
globbing, but it is a head-match, and match is forced at '/' boundary.

ls-files and grep know how to glob, on the other hand.