1 Git v2.44 Release Notes
2 =======================
4 Backward Compatibility Notes
6 * "git chekcout -B <branch>" used to allow switching to a branch that
7 is in use on another worktree, but this was by mistake. The users
8 need to use "--ignore-other-worktrees" option.
11 UI, Workflows & Features
13 * "git add" and "git stash" learned to support the ":(attr:...)"
16 * "git rebase --autosquash" is now enabled for non-interactive rebase,
17 but it is still incompatible with the apply backend.
19 * Introduce "git replay", a tool meant on the server side without
20 working tree to recreate a history.
22 * "git merge-file" learned to take the "--diff-algorithm" option to
23 use algorithm different from the default "myers" diff.
25 * Command line completion (in contrib/) learned to complete path
26 arguments to the "add/set" subcommands of "git sparse-checkout"
29 * "git checkout -B <branch> [<start-point>]" allowed a branch that is
30 in use in another worktree to be updated and checked out, which
31 might be a bit unexpected. The rule has been tightened, which is a
32 breaking change. "--ignore-other-worktrees" option is required to
33 unbreak you, if you are used to the current behaviour that "-B"
36 * The builtin_objectmode attribute is populated for each path
37 without adding anything in .gitattributes files, which would be
38 useful in magic pathspec, e.g., ":(attr:builtin_objectmode=100755)"
39 to limit to executables.
41 * "git fetch" learned to pay attention to "fetch.all" configuration
42 variable, which pretends as if "--all" was passed from the command
43 line when no remote parameter was given.
45 * In addition to (rather cryptic) Security Identifiers, show username
46 and domain in the error message when we barf on mismatch between
47 the Git directory and the current user on Windows.
49 * The error message given when "git branch -d branch" fails due to
50 commits unique to the branch has been split into an error and a new
51 conditional advice message.
53 * When given an existing but unreadable file as a configuration file,
54 gitweb behaved as if the file did not exist at all, but now it
55 errors out. This is a change that may break backward compatibility.
57 * When $HOME/.gitignore is missing but XDG config file available, we
58 should write into the latter, not former. "git gc" and "git
59 maintenance" wrote into a wrong "global config" file, which have
62 * Define "special ref" as a very narrow set that consists of
63 FETCH_HEAD and MERGE_HEAD, and clarify everything else that used to
64 be classified as such are actually just pseudorefs.
66 * All conditional "advice" messages show how to turn them off, which
67 becomes repetitive. Setting advice.* configuration explicitly on
68 now omits the instruction part.
70 * The "disable repository discovery of a bare repository" check,
71 triggered by setting safe.bareRepository configuration variable to
72 'explicit', has been loosened to exclude the ".git/" directory inside
73 a non-bare repository from the check. So you can do "cd .git &&
74 git cmd" to run a Git command that works on a bare repository without
75 explicitly specifying $GIT_DIR now.
77 * The completion script (in contrib/) learned more options that can
78 be used with "git log".
80 * The labels on conflict markers for the common ancestor, our version,
81 and the other version are available to custom 3-way merge driver
82 via %S, %X, and %Y placeholders.
84 * The write codepath for the reftable data learned to honor
85 core.fsync configuration.
87 * The "--fsck-objects" option of "git index-pack" now can take the
88 optional parameter to tweak severity of different fsck errors.
90 * The wincred credential backend has been taught to support oauth
91 refresh token the same way as credential-cache and
92 credential-libsecret backends.
94 * Command line completion support (in contrib/) has been
95 updated for "git bisect".
97 * "git branch" and friends learned to use the formatted text as
98 sorting key, not the underlying timestamp value, when the --sort
99 option is used with author or committer timestamp with a format
100 specifier (e.g., "--sort=creatordate:format:%H:%M:%S").
103 Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
105 * Process to add some form of low-level unit tests has started.
107 * Add support for GitLab CI.
109 * "git for-each-ref --no-sort" still sorted the refs alphabetically
110 which paid non-trivial cost. It has been redefined to show output
111 in an unspecified order, to allow certain optimizations to take
114 * Simplify API implementation to delete references by eliminating
117 * Subject approxidate() and show_date() machinery to OSS-Fuzz.
119 * A new helper to let us pretend that we called lstat() when we know
120 our cache_entry is up-to-date via fsmonitor.
122 * The optimization based on fsmonitor in the "diff --cached"
123 codepath is resurrected with the "fake-lstat" introduced earlier.
125 * Test balloon to use C99 "bool" type from <stdbool.h> has been
128 * "git clone" has been prepared to allow cloning a repository with
129 non-default hash function into a repository that uses the reftable
132 * Streaming spans of packfile data used to be done only from a
133 single, primary, pack in a repository with multiple packfiles. It
134 has been extended to allow reuse from other packfiles, too.
136 * Comment updates to help developers not to attempt to modify
137 messages from plumbing commands that must stay constant.
139 It might make sense to reassess the plumbing needs every few years,
140 but that should be done as a separate effort.
142 * Move test-ctype helper to the unit-test framework.
144 * Instead of manually creating refs/ hierarchy on disk upon a
145 creation of a secondary worktree, which is only usable via the
146 files backend, use the refs API to populate it.
148 * CI for GitLab learned to drive macOS jobs.
150 * A few tests to "git commit -o <pathspec>" and "git commit -i
151 <pathspec>" has been added.
153 * Tests on ref API are moved around to prepare for reftable.
155 * The Makefile often had to say "-L$(path) -R$(path)" that repeats
156 the path to the same library directory for link time and runtime.
157 A Makefile template is used to reduce such repetition.
159 * The priority queue test has been migrated to the unit testing
162 * Setting `feature.experimental` opts the user into multi-pack reuse
169 * The way CI testing used "prove" could lead to running the test
170 suite twice needlessly, which has been corrected.
172 * Update ref-related tests.
174 * "git format-patch --encode-email-headers" ignored the option when
175 preparing the cover letter, which has been corrected.
177 * Newer versions of Getopt::Long started giving warnings against our
178 (ab)use of it in "git send-email". Bump the minimum version
179 requirement for Perl to 5.8.1 (from September 2002) to allow
180 simplifying our implementation.
182 * Earlier we stopped relying on commit-graph that (still) records
183 information about commits that are lost from the object store,
184 which has negative performance implications. The default has been
185 flipped to disable this pessimization.
187 * Stale URLs have been updated to their current counterparts (or
188 archive.org) and HTTP links are replaced with working HTTPS links.
190 * trace2 streams used to record the URLs that potentially embed
191 authentication material, which has been corrected.
193 * The sample pre-commit hook that tries to catch introduction of new
194 paths that use potentially non-portable characters did not notice
195 an existing path getting renamed to such a problematic path, when
196 rename detection was enabled.
198 * The command line parser for the "log" family of commands was too
199 loose when parsing certain numbers, e.g., silently ignoring the
200 extra 'q' in "git log -n 1q" without complaining, which has been
203 * "git $cmd --end-of-options --rev -- --path" for some $cmd failed
204 to interpret "--rev" as a rev, and "--path" as a path. This was
205 fixed for many programs like "reset" and "checkout".
207 * "git bisect reset" has been taught to clean up state files and refs
208 even when BISECT_START file is gone.
210 * Some codepaths did not correctly parse configuration variables
211 specified with valueless "true", which has been corrected.
213 * Code clean-up for sanity checking of command line options for "git
216 * The code to parse the From e-mail header has been updated to avoid
219 * "git fetch --atomic" issued an unnecessary empty error message,
220 which has been corrected.
222 * Command line completion script (in contrib/) learned to work better
223 with the reftable backend.
225 * "git status" is taught to show both the branch being bisected and
226 being rebased when both are in effect at the same time.
228 * "git archive --list extra garbage" silently ignored excess command
229 line parameters, which has been corrected.
231 * "git sparse-checkout set" added default patterns even when the
232 patterns are being fed from the standard input, which has been
235 * "git sparse-checkout (add|set) --[no-]cone --end-of-options" did
236 not handle "--end-of-options" correctly after a recent update.
238 * Unlike other environment variables that took the usual
239 true/false/yes/no as well as 0/1, GIT_FLUSH only understood 0/1,
240 which has been corrected.
242 * Clearing in-core repository (happens during e.g., "git fetch
243 --recurse-submodules" with commit graph enabled) made in-core
244 commit object in an inconsistent state by discarding the necessary
245 data from commit-graph too early, which has been corrected.
247 * Update to a new feature recently added, "git show-ref --exists".
248 (merge 0aabeaa562 tc/show-ref-exists-fix later to maint).
250 * oss-fuzz tests are built and run in CI.
251 (merge c4a9cf1df3 js/oss-fuzz-build-in-ci later to maint).
253 * Rename detection logic ignored the final line of a file if it is an
255 (merge 1c5bc6971e en/diffcore-delta-final-line-fix later to maint).
258 (merge 0188b2c8e0 pb/ci-github-skip-logs-for-broken-tests later to maint).
260 * "git diff --no-rename A B" did not disable rename detection but did
261 not trigger an error from the command line parser.
262 (merge 457f96252f rs/parse-options-with-keep-unknown-abbrev-fix later to maint).
264 * "git archive --remote=<remote>" learned to talk over the smart
265 http (aka stateless) transport.
266 (merge 176cd68634 jx/remote-archive-over-smart-http later to maint).
268 * Fetching via protocol v0 over Smart HTTP transport sometimes failed
269 to correctly auto-follow tags.
270 (merge fba732c462 jk/fetch-auto-tag-following-fix later to maint).
272 * The documentation for the --exclude-per-directory option marked it
273 as deprecated, which confused readers into thinking there may be a
274 plan to remove it in the future, which was not our intention.
275 (merge 0009542cab jc/ls-files-doc-update later to maint).
277 * "git diff --no-index file1 file2" segfaulted while invoking the
278 external diff driver, which has been corrected.
279 (merge 85a9a63c92 jk/diff-external-with-no-index later to maint).
281 * Rewrite //-comments to /* comments */ in files whose comments
282 prevalently use the latter.
283 (merge de65079d7b jc/comment-style-fixes later to maint).
285 * Cirrus CI jobs started breaking because we specified version of
286 FreeBSD that is no longer available, which has been corrected.
287 (merge 81fffb66d3 cb/use-freebsd-13-2-at-cirrus-ci later to maint).
289 * A caller called index_file_exists() that takes a string expressed
290 as <ptr, length> with a wrong length, which has been corrected.
291 (merge 156e28b36d jh/sparse-index-expand-to-path-fix later to maint).
293 * A failed "git tag -s" did not necessarily result in an error
294 depending on the crypto backend, which has been corrected.
295 (merge 6931049c32 jc/sign-buffer-failure-propagation-fix later to maint).
297 * "git stash" sometimes was silent even when it failed due to
298 unwritable index file, which has been corrected.
299 (merge d2058cb2f0 ps/report-failure-from-git-stash later to maint).
301 * "git show-ref --verify" did not show things like "CHERRY_PICK_HEAD",
302 which has been corrected.
304 * Other code cleanup, docfix, build fix, etc.
305 (merge 5aea3955bc rj/clarify-branch-doc-m later to maint).
306 (merge 9cce3be2df bk/bisect-doc-fix later to maint).
307 (merge 8f50984cf4 ne/doc-filter-blob-limit-fix later to maint).
308 (merge f10b0989b8 la/strvec-comment-fix later to maint).
309 (merge 8430b438f6 vd/fsck-submodule-url-test later to maint).
310 (merge f10031fadd nb/rebase-x-shell-docfix later to maint).
311 (merge af3d2c160f jc/majordomo-to-subspace later to maint).
312 (merge ee9895b0ff sd/negotiate-trace-fix later to maint).
313 (merge 976d0251ce jc/coc-whitespace-fix later to maint).
314 (merge 9023198280 jt/p4-spell-re-with-raw-string later to maint).
315 (merge 36c9c44fa4 tb/pack-bitmap-drop-unused-struct-member later to maint).
316 (merge 19ed0dff8f js/win32-retry-pipe-write-on-enospc later to maint).
317 (merge 3cb4384683 jc/t0091-with-unknown-git later to maint).
318 (merge 841dbd40a3 jc/bisect-doc later to maint).
319 (merge 78307f1a89 pb/template-for-single-commit-pr later to maint).