From: Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: Elijah Newren <newren@gmail.com>, git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: what should "git clean -n -f [-d] [-x] <pattern>" do?
Date: Thu, 25 Jan 2024 20:11:29 +0300 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <87il3h72ym.fsf@osv.gnss.ru> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqa5ouhckj.fsf@gitster.g> (Junio C. Hamano's message of "Wed, 24 Jan 2024 09:21:32 -0800")
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:
> Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Whereas obsoleting second -f in favor of new --nested-repo might be a
>> good idea indeed, I believe it's still a mistake for "dry run" to
>> somehow interfere with -f, sorry.
>
> No need to be sorry ;-)
>
> I actually think the true culprit of making this an odd-man-out is
> that the use of "-f" in "git clean", especially with its use of the
> configuration variable clean.requireForce that defaults to true, is
> utterly non-standard.
>
> The usual pattern of defining what "-f" does is that the "git foo"
> command without any options does its common thing but refuses to
> perform undesirable operations (e.g. "git add ." adds everything
> but refrains from adding ignored paths). And "git foo -f" is a way
> to also perform what it commonly skips.
>
> In contrast, with clean.requireForce that defaults to true, "git
> clean" does not do anything useful by default. Without such a
> safety, "git clean" would be a way to clean expendable paths, and
> "git clean -f" might be to also clean precious paths. But it does
> not work that way. It always requires "-f" to do anything. Worse
> yet, it is not even "by default it acts as if -n is given and -f is
> a way to countermand that implicit -n". It is "you must give me
> either -f (i.e. please do work) or -n (i.e. please show what you
> would do) before I do anything".
>
> $ git clean
> fatal: clean.requireForce defaults to true and neither -i, -n, nor -f given; refusing to clean
>
> Given that, it is hard to argue that it would be a natural end-user
> expectation that the command does something useful (i.e. show what
> would be done) when it is given "-f" and "-n" at the same time.
> What makes this a rather nonsense UI is the fact that "-f" does not
> work the way we would expect for this command.
I think we all agree that current UI is a kind of nonsense, but have
different views of the optimal target interface. My points are as
following:
1. The fact that bare "git clean" only produces error by default is
probably a good thing, as removal of untracked files is unrecoverable
operation in Git domain, so requiring -f by default is probably a good
thing as well, provided the *only* operation that "git clean" performs
is dangerous enough.
2. The "-n" behavior is pure nonsense.
So, how do we fix (2)? Let's try mental experiment. Suppose there is no
"-n" option for "git clean" and we are going to implement it. We start
from:
$ git clean
fatal: clean.requireForce defaults to true and neither -i nor -f given; refusing to clean
$ git clean -f
removing "a"
removing "b"
$
Please notice that there is no "-n" in the error message as there is no
such option yet in our experiment.
Now we are going to introduce "dry run" option "-n". Most simple and
obvious way to do it is to set internal flag "dry_run" and then at every
invocation of "remove(file_name)" put an if(dry_run) that will just
print(file_name) instead or removing it. Let's suppose we did just that.
We get this behavior:
$ git clean -n
fatal: clean.requireForce defaults to true and neither -i nor -f given; refusing to clean
$ git clean -f -n
would remove "a"
would remove "b"
$ git clean -f -f -n
would remove "a"
would remove "b"
would remove "sub/a"
$
I see this as logical, clean, and straightforward behavior, meeting user
expectations for "dry run" option, so I suggest to do just that.
Thanks,
-- Sergey Organov.
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2024-01-25 17:11 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 38+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2024-01-09 20:20 what should "git clean -n -f [-d] [-x] <pattern>" do? Junio C Hamano
2024-01-09 22:04 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-19 2:07 ` Elijah Newren
2024-01-23 15:10 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-23 18:34 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-01-24 8:23 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-24 17:21 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-01-25 17:11 ` Sergey Organov [this message]
2024-01-25 17:46 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-01-25 20:27 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-25 20:31 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-26 7:44 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-01-26 12:09 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-27 10:00 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-01-27 13:25 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-29 19:40 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2024-01-31 13:04 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-29 9:35 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-29 18:20 ` Jeff King
2024-01-29 21:49 ` Sergey Organov
2024-01-30 5:44 ` Jeff King
2024-01-30 5:53 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-02-29 19:07 ` [PATCH] clean: improve -n and -f implementation and documentation Sergey Organov
2024-03-01 13:20 ` Jean-Noël Avila
2024-03-01 14:34 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-01 15:29 ` Kristoffer Haugsbakk
2024-03-01 18:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-03-02 19:47 ` Jean-Noël AVILA
2024-03-02 20:09 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-02 21:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-03-02 23:48 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-03 9:54 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-01 18:07 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-03-01 18:30 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-03-01 19:31 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-02 16:31 ` Junio C Hamano
2024-03-02 19:59 ` Sergey Organov
2024-03-03 9:50 ` [PATCH v2] " Sergey Organov
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