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1 Git 2.16 Release Notes
2 ======================
4 Backward compatibility notes and other notable changes.
6 * Use of an empty string as a pathspec element that is used for
7 'everything matches' is now an error.
10 Updates since v2.15
11 -------------------
13 UI, Workflows & Features
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).
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.
24 * "git pull" has been taught to accept "--[no-]signoff" option and
25 pass it down to "git merge".
27 * The "--push-option=<string>" option to "git push" now defaults to a
28 list of strings configured via push.pushOption variable.
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.
34 * "git stash save" has been deprecated in favour of "git stash push".
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.
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.
47 * The remote-helper for talking to MediaWiki has been updated to
48 work with mediawiki namespaces.
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.
55 * Doc and message updates to teach users "bisect view" is a synonym
56 for "bisect visualize".
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.
62 * The SubmittingPatches document has been converted to produce an
63 HTML version via AsciiDoc/Asciidoctor.
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.
68 * The "diff" family of commands learned to ignore differences in
69 carriage return at the end of line.
71 * Places that know about "sendemail.to", like documentation and shell
72 completion (in contrib/) have been taught about "sendemail.tocmd",
73 too.
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.
79 * "git branch" and "git checkout -b" are now forbidden from creating
80 a branch whose name is "HEAD".
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".
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.
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.
96 * The shell completion (in contrib/) learned that "git pull" can take
97 the "--autostash" option.
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>.
103 * "git grep" compiled with libpcre2 sometimes triggered a segfault,
104 which is being fixed.
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.
111 Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
113 * An earlier update made it possible to use an on-stack in-core
114 lockfile structure (as opposed to having to deliberately leak an
115 on-heap one). Many codepaths have been updated to take advantage
116 of this new facility.
118 * Calling cmd_foo() as if it is a general purpose helper function is
119 a no-no. Correct two instances of such to set an example.
121 * We try to see if somebody runs our test suite with a shell that
122 does not support "local" like bash/dash does.
124 * An early part of piece-by-piece rewrite of "git bisect" in C.
126 * GSoC to piece-by-piece rewrite "git submodule" in C.
128 * Optimize the code to find shortest unique prefix of object names.
130 * Pathspec-limited revision traversal was taught not to keep finding
131 unneeded differences once it knows two trees are different inside
132 given pathspec.
134 * Conversion from uchar[20] to struct object_id continues.
136 * Code cleanup.
138 * A single-word "unsigned flags" in the diff options is being split
139 into a structure with many bitfields.
141 * TravisCI build updates.
143 * Parts of a test to drive the long-running content filter interface
144 has been split into its own module, hopefully to eventually become
145 reusable.
147 * Drop (perhaps overly cautious) sanity check before using the index
148 read from the filesystem at runtime.
150 * The build procedure has been taught to avoid some unnecessary
151 instability in the build products.
153 * A new mechanism to upgrade the wire protocol in place is proposed
154 and demonstrated that it works with the older versions of Git
155 without harming them.
157 * An infrastructure to define what hash function is used in Git is
158 introduced, and an effort to plumb that throughout various
159 codepaths has been started.
161 * The code to iterate over loose object files got optimized.
163 * An internal function that was left for backward compatibility has
164 been removed, as there is no remaining callers.
166 Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups.
169 Fixes since v2.15
170 -----------------
172 * "auto" as a value for the columnar output configuration ought to
173 judge "is the output consumed by humans?" with the same criteria as
174 "auto" for coloured output configuration, i.e. either the standard
175 output stream is going to tty, or a pager is in use. We forgot the
176 latter, which has been fixed.
178 * The experimental "color moved lines differently in diff output"
179 feature was buggy around "ignore whitespace changes" edges, which
180 has been corrected.
182 * Instead of using custom line comparison and hashing functions to
183 implement "moved lines" coloring in the diff output, use the pair
184 of these functions from lower-layer xdiff/ code.
186 * Some codepaths did not check for errors when asking what branch the
187 HEAD points at, which have been fixed.
189 * "git commit", after making a commit, did not check for errors when
190 asking on what branch it made the commit, which has been corrected.
192 * "git status --ignored -u" did not stop at a working tree of a
193 separate project that is embedded in an ignored directory and
194 listed files in that other project, instead of just showing the
195 directory itself as ignored.
197 * A broken access to object databases in recent update to "git grep
198 --recurse-submodules" has been fixed.
200 * A recent regression in "git rebase -i" that broke execution of git
201 commands from subdirectories via "exec" instruction has been fixed.
203 * A (possibly flakey) test fix.
205 * "git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}" bit a "BUG()" when run
206 outside a repository for obvious reasons; clarify the documentation
207 and make sure we do not even try to expand the at-mark magic in
208 such a case, but still call the validation logic for branch names.
210 * "git fetch --recurse-submodules" now knows that submodules can be
211 moved around in the superproject in addition to getting updated,
212 and finds the ones that need to be fetched accordingly.
214 * Command line completion (in contrib/) update.
216 * Description of blame.{showroot,blankboundary,showemail,date}
217 configuration variables have been added to "git config --help".
219 * After an error from lstat(), diff_populate_filespec() function
220 sometimes still went ahead and used invalid data in struct stat,
221 which has been fixed.
223 * UNC paths are also relevant in Cygwin builds and they are now
224 tested just like Mingw builds.
226 * Correct start-up sequence so that a repository could be placed
227 immediately under the root directory again (which was broken at
228 around Git 2.13).
230 * The credential helper for libsecret (in contrib/) has been improved
231 to allow possibly prompting the end user to unlock secrets that are
232 currently locked (otherwise the secrets may not be loaded).
234 * MinGW updates.
236 * Error checking in "git imap-send" for empty response has been
237 improved.
239 * Recent update to the refs infrastructure implementation started
240 rewriting packed-refs file more often than before; this has been
241 optimized again for most trivial cases.
243 * Some error messages did not quote filenames shown in it, which have
244 been fixed.
246 * "git rebase -i" recently started misbehaving when a submodule that
247 is configured with 'submodule.<name>.ignore' is dirty; this has
248 been corrected.
250 * Building with NO_LIBPCRE1_JIT did not disable it, which has been fixed.
252 * We used to add an empty alternate object database to the system
253 that does not help anything; it has been corrected.
255 * Doc update around use of "format-patch --subject-prefix" etc.
257 * A fix for an ancient bug in "git apply --ignore-space-change" codepath.
259 * Clarify and enhance documentation for "merge-base --fork-point", as
260 it was clear what it computed but not why/what for.
262 * A few scripts (both in production and tests) incorrectly redirected
263 their error output. These have been corrected.
265 * "git notes" sent its error message to its standard output stream,
266 which was corrected.
268 * The three-way merge performed by "git cherry-pick" was confused
269 when a new submodule was added in the meantime, which has been
270 fixed (or "papered over").
272 * The sequencer machinery (used by "git cherry-pick A..B", and "git
273 rebase -i", among other things) would have lost a commit if stopped
274 due to an unlockable index file, which has been fixed.
276 * "git apply --inaccurate-eof" when used with "--ignore-space-change"
277 triggered an internal sanity check, which has been fixed.
279 * Command line completion (in contrib/) has been taught about the
280 "--copy" option of "git branch".
282 * When "git rebase" prepared an mailbox of changes and fed it to "git
283 am" to replay them, it was confused when a stray "From " happened
284 to be in the log message of one of the replayed changes. This has
285 been corrected.
287 * There was a recent semantic mismerge in the codepath to write out a
288 section of a configuration section, which has been corrected.
290 * Mentions of "git-rebase" and "git-am" (dashed form) still remained
291 in end-user visible strings emitted by the "git rebase" command;
292 they have been corrected.
294 * Contrary to the documentation, "git pull -4/-6 other-args" did not
295 ask the underlying "git fetch" to go over IPv4/IPv6, which has been
296 corrected.
298 * "git checkout --recursive" may overwrite and rewind the history of
299 the branch that happens to be checked out in submodule
300 repositories, which might not be desirable. Detach the HEAD but
301 still allow the recursive checkout to succeed in such a case.
302 (merge 57f22bf997 sb/submodule-recursive-checkout-detach-head later to maint).
304 * "git branch --set-upstream" has been deprecated and (sort of)
305 removed, as "--set-upstream-to" is the preferred one these days.
306 The documentation still had "--set-upstream" listed on its
307 synopsis section, which has been corrected.
308 (merge a060f3d3d8 tz/branch-doc-remove-set-upstream later to maint).
310 * Internally we use 0{40} as a placeholder object name to signal the
311 codepath that there is no such object (e.g. the fast-forward check
312 while "git fetch" stores a new remote-tracking ref says "we know
313 there is no 'old' thing pointed at by the ref, as we are creating
314 it anew" by passing 0{40} for the 'old' side), and expect that a
315 codepath to locate an in-core object to return NULL as a sign that
316 the object does not exist. A look-up for an object that does not
317 exist however is quite costly with a repository with large number
318 of packfiles. This access pattern has been optimized.
319 (merge 87b5e236a1 jk/fewer-pack-rescan later to maint).
321 * In addition to "git stash -m message", the command learned to
322 accept "git stash -mmessage" form.
323 (merge 5675473fcb ph/stash-save-m-option-fix later to maint).
325 * @{-N} in "git checkout @{-N}" may refer to a detached HEAD state,
326 but the documentation was not clear about it, which has been fixed.
327 (merge 75ce149575 ks/doc-checkout-previous later to maint).
329 * A regression in the progress eye-candy was fixed.
330 (merge 9c5951cacf jk/progress-delay-fix later to maint).
332 * Other minor doc, test and build updates and code cleanups.
333 (merge 1a1fc2d5b5 rd/man-prune-progress later to maint).
334 (merge 0ba014035a rd/man-reflog-add-n later to maint).
335 (merge e54b63359f rd/doc-notes-prune-fix later to maint).
336 (merge ff4c9b413a sp/doc-info-attributes later to maint).
337 (merge 7db2cbf4f1 jc/receive-pack-hook-doc later to maint).
338 (merge 5a0526264b tg/t-readme-updates later to maint).
339 (merge 5e83cca0b8 jk/no-optional-locks later to maint).
340 (merge 826c778f7c js/hashmap-update-sample later to maint).