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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 optionally talk to a file system monitor via new
66 fsmonitor extension to speed up "git status" and other operations
67 that need to see which paths have been modified. Currently we only
68 support "watchman". See File System Monitor section of
69 git-update-index(1) for more detail.
71 * The "diff" family of commands learned to ignore differences in
72 carriage return at the end of line.
74 * Places that know about "sendemail.to", like documentation and shell
75 completion (in contrib/) have been taught about "sendemail.tocmd",
76 too.
78 * "git add --renormalize ." is a new and safer way to record the fact
79 that you are correcting the end-of-line convention and other
80 "convert_to_git()" glitches in the in-repository data.
82 * "git branch" and "git checkout -b" are now forbidden from creating
83 a branch whose name is "HEAD".
85 * "git branch --list" learned to show its output through the pager by
86 default when the output is going to a terminal, which is controlled
87 by the pager.branch configuration variable. This is similar to a
88 recent change to "git tag --list".
90 * "git grep -W", "git diff -W" and their friends learned a heuristic
91 to extend a pre-context beyond the line that matches the "function
92 pattern" (aka "diff.*.xfuncname") to include a comment block, if
93 exists, that immediately precedes it.
95 * "git config --expiry-date gc.reflogexpire" can read "2.weeks" from
96 the configuration and report it as a timestamp, just like "--int"
97 would read "1k" and report 1024, to help consumption by scripts.
99 * The shell completion (in contrib/) learned that "git pull" can take
100 the "--autostash" option.
102 * The tagnames "git log --decorate" uses to annotate the commits can
103 now be limited to subset of available refs with the two additional
104 options, --decorate-refs[-exclude]=<pattern>.
106 * "git grep" compiled with libpcre2 sometimes triggered a segfault,
107 which is being fixed.
109 * "git send-email" tries to see if the sendmail program is available
110 in /usr/lib and /usr/sbin; extend the list of locations to be
111 checked to also include directories on $PATH.
113 * "git diff" learned, "--anchored", a variant of the "--patience"
114 algorithm, to which the user can specify which 'unique' line to be
115 used as anchoring points.
117 * The way "git worktree add" determines what branch to create from
118 where and checkout in the new worktree has been updated a bit.
120 * Ancient part of codebase still shows dots after an abbreviated
121 object name just to show that it is not a full object name, but
122 these ellipses are confusing to people who newly discovered Git
123 who are used to seeing abbreviated object names and find them
124 confusing with the range syntax.
126 * With a configuration variable rebase.abbreviateCommands set,
127 "git rebase -i" produces the todo list with a single-letter
128 command names.
130 * "git worktree add" learned to run the post-checkout hook, just like
131 "git checkout" does, after the initial checkout.
133 * "git svn" has been updated to strip CRs in the commit messages, as
134 recent versions of Subversion rejects them.
136 * "git imap-send" did not correctly quote the folder name when
137 making a request to the server, which has been corrected.
139 * Error messages from "git rebase" have been somewhat cleaned up.
141 * Git has been taught to support an https:// URL used for http.proxy
142 when using recent versions of libcurl.
144 * "git merge" learned to pay attention to merge.verifySignatures
145 configuration variable and pretend as if '--verify-signatures'
146 option was given from the command line.
148 * "git describe" was taught to dig trees deeper to find a
149 <commit-ish>:<path> that refers to a given blob object.
152 Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
154 * An earlier update made it possible to use an on-stack in-core
155 lockfile structure (as opposed to having to deliberately leak an
156 on-heap one). Many codepaths have been updated to take advantage
157 of this new facility.
159 * Calling cmd_foo() as if it is a general purpose helper function is
160 a no-no. Correct two instances of such to set an example.
162 * We try to see if somebody runs our test suite with a shell that
163 does not support "local" like bash/dash does.
165 * An early part of piece-by-piece rewrite of "git bisect" in C.
167 * GSoC to piece-by-piece rewrite "git submodule" in C.
169 * Optimize the code to find shortest unique prefix of object names.
171 * Pathspec-limited revision traversal was taught not to keep finding
172 unneeded differences once it knows two trees are different inside
173 given pathspec.
175 * Conversion from uchar[20] to struct object_id continues.
177 * Code cleanup.
179 * A single-word "unsigned flags" in the diff options is being split
180 into a structure with many bitfields.
182 * TravisCI build updates.
184 * Parts of a test to drive the long-running content filter interface
185 has been split into its own module, hopefully to eventually become
186 reusable.
188 * Drop (perhaps overly cautious) sanity check before using the index
189 read from the filesystem at runtime.
191 * The build procedure has been taught to avoid some unnecessary
192 instability in the build products.
194 * A new mechanism to upgrade the wire protocol in place is proposed
195 and demonstrated that it works with the older versions of Git
196 without harming them.
198 * An infrastructure to define what hash function is used in Git is
199 introduced, and an effort to plumb that throughout various
200 codepaths has been started.
202 * The code to iterate over loose object files got optimized.
204 * An internal function that was left for backward compatibility has
205 been removed, as there is no remaining callers.
207 * Historically, the diff machinery for rename detection had a
208 hardcoded limit of 32k paths; this is being lifted to allow users
209 trade cycles with a (possibly) easier to read result.
211 * The tracing infrastructure has been optimized for cases where no
212 tracing is requested.
214 * In preparation for implementing narrow/partial clone, the object
215 walking machinery has been taught a way to tell it to "filter" some
216 objects from enumeration.
218 * A few structures and variables that are implementation details of
219 the decorate API have been renamed and then the API got documented
220 better.
222 * Assorted updates for TravisCI integration.
223 (merge 4f26366679 sg/travis-fixes later to maint).
225 * Introduce a helper to simplify code to parse a common pattern that
226 expects either "--key" or "--key=<something>".
228 * "git version --build-options" learned to report the host CPU and
229 the exact commit object name the binary was built from.
231 Also contains various documentation updates and code clean-ups.
234 Fixes since v2.15
235 -----------------
237 * "auto" as a value for the columnar output configuration ought to
238 judge "is the output consumed by humans?" with the same criteria as
239 "auto" for coloured output configuration, i.e. either the standard
240 output stream is going to tty, or a pager is in use. We forgot the
241 latter, which has been fixed.
243 * The experimental "color moved lines differently in diff output"
244 feature was buggy around "ignore whitespace changes" edges, which
245 has been corrected.
247 * Instead of using custom line comparison and hashing functions to
248 implement "moved lines" coloring in the diff output, use the pair
249 of these functions from lower-layer xdiff/ code.
251 * Some codepaths did not check for errors when asking what branch the
252 HEAD points at, which have been fixed.
254 * "git commit", after making a commit, did not check for errors when
255 asking on what branch it made the commit, which has been corrected.
257 * "git status --ignored -u" did not stop at a working tree of a
258 separate project that is embedded in an ignored directory and
259 listed files in that other project, instead of just showing the
260 directory itself as ignored.
262 * A broken access to object databases in recent update to "git grep
263 --recurse-submodules" has been fixed.
265 * A recent regression in "git rebase -i" that broke execution of git
266 commands from subdirectories via "exec" instruction has been fixed.
268 * A (possibly flakey) test fix.
270 * "git check-ref-format --branch @{-1}" bit a "BUG()" when run
271 outside a repository for obvious reasons; clarify the documentation
272 and make sure we do not even try to expand the at-mark magic in
273 such a case, but still call the validation logic for branch names.
275 * "git fetch --recurse-submodules" now knows that submodules can be
276 moved around in the superproject in addition to getting updated,
277 and finds the ones that need to be fetched accordingly.
279 * Command line completion (in contrib/) update.
281 * Description of blame.{showroot,blankboundary,showemail,date}
282 configuration variables have been added to "git config --help".
284 * After an error from lstat(), diff_populate_filespec() function
285 sometimes still went ahead and used invalid data in struct stat,
286 which has been fixed.
288 * UNC paths are also relevant in Cygwin builds and they are now
289 tested just like Mingw builds.
291 * Correct start-up sequence so that a repository could be placed
292 immediately under the root directory again (which was broken at
293 around Git 2.13).
295 * The credential helper for libsecret (in contrib/) has been improved
296 to allow possibly prompting the end user to unlock secrets that are
297 currently locked (otherwise the secrets may not be loaded).
299 * MinGW updates.
301 * Error checking in "git imap-send" for empty response has been
302 improved.
304 * Recent update to the refs infrastructure implementation started
305 rewriting packed-refs file more often than before; this has been
306 optimized again for most trivial cases.
308 * Some error messages did not quote filenames shown in it, which have
309 been fixed.
311 * "git rebase -i" recently started misbehaving when a submodule that
312 is configured with 'submodule.<name>.ignore' is dirty; this has
313 been corrected.
315 * Building with NO_LIBPCRE1_JIT did not disable it, which has been fixed.
317 * We used to add an empty alternate object database to the system
318 that does not help anything; it has been corrected.
320 * Doc update around use of "format-patch --subject-prefix" etc.
322 * A fix for an ancient bug in "git apply --ignore-space-change" codepath.
324 * Clarify and enhance documentation for "merge-base --fork-point", as
325 it was clear what it computed but not why/what for.
327 * A few scripts (both in production and tests) incorrectly redirected
328 their error output. These have been corrected.
330 * "git notes" sent its error message to its standard output stream,
331 which was corrected.
333 * The three-way merge performed by "git cherry-pick" was confused
334 when a new submodule was added in the meantime, which has been
335 fixed (or "papered over").
337 * The sequencer machinery (used by "git cherry-pick A..B", and "git
338 rebase -i", among other things) would have lost a commit if stopped
339 due to an unlockable index file, which has been fixed.
341 * "git apply --inaccurate-eof" when used with "--ignore-space-change"
342 triggered an internal sanity check, which has been fixed.
344 * Command line completion (in contrib/) has been taught about the
345 "--copy" option of "git branch".
347 * When "git rebase" prepared a mailbox of changes and fed it to "git
348 am" to replay them, it was confused when a stray "From " happened
349 to be in the log message of one of the replayed changes. This has
350 been corrected.
352 * There was a recent semantic mismerge in the codepath to write out a
353 section of a configuration section, which has been corrected.
355 * Mentions of "git-rebase" and "git-am" (dashed form) still remained
356 in end-user visible strings emitted by the "git rebase" command;
357 they have been corrected.
359 * Contrary to the documentation, "git pull -4/-6 other-args" did not
360 ask the underlying "git fetch" to go over IPv4/IPv6, which has been
361 corrected.
363 * "git checkout --recursive" may overwrite and rewind the history of
364 the branch that happens to be checked out in submodule
365 repositories, which might not be desirable. Detach the HEAD but
366 still allow the recursive checkout to succeed in such a case.
367 (merge 57f22bf997 sb/submodule-recursive-checkout-detach-head later to maint).
369 * "git branch --set-upstream" has been deprecated and (sort of)
370 removed, as "--set-upstream-to" is the preferred one these days.
371 The documentation still had "--set-upstream" listed on its
372 synopsis section, which has been corrected.
373 (merge a060f3d3d8 tz/branch-doc-remove-set-upstream later to maint).
375 * Internally we use 0{40} as a placeholder object name to signal the
376 codepath that there is no such object (e.g. the fast-forward check
377 while "git fetch" stores a new remote-tracking ref says "we know
378 there is no 'old' thing pointed at by the ref, as we are creating
379 it anew" by passing 0{40} for the 'old' side), and expect that a
380 codepath to locate an in-core object to return NULL as a sign that
381 the object does not exist. A look-up for an object that does not
382 exist however is quite costly with a repository with large number
383 of packfiles. This access pattern has been optimized.
384 (merge 87b5e236a1 jk/fewer-pack-rescan later to maint).
386 * In addition to "git stash -m message", the command learned to
387 accept "git stash -mmessage" form.
388 (merge 5675473fcb ph/stash-save-m-option-fix later to maint).
390 * @{-N} in "git checkout @{-N}" may refer to a detached HEAD state,
391 but the documentation was not clear about it, which has been fixed.
392 (merge 75ce149575 ks/doc-checkout-previous later to maint).
394 * A regression in the progress eye-candy was fixed.
395 (merge 9c5951cacf jk/progress-delay-fix later to maint).
397 * The code internal to the recursive merge strategy was not fully
398 prepared to see a path that is renamed to try overwriting another
399 path that is only different in case on case insensitive systems.
400 This does not matter in the current code, but will start to matter
401 once the rename detection logic starts taking hints from nearby
402 paths moving to some directory and moves a new path along with them.
403 (merge 4cba2b0108 en/merge-recursive-icase-removal later to maint).
405 * An v2.12-era regression in pathspec match logic, which made it look
406 into submodule tree even when it is not desired, has been fixed.
407 (merge eef3df5a93 bw/pathspec-match-submodule-boundary later to maint).
409 * Amending commits in git-gui broke the author name that is non-ascii
410 due to incorrect encoding conversion.
412 * Recent update to the submodule configuration code broke "diff-tree"
413 by accidentally stopping to read from the index upfront.
414 (merge fd66bcc31f bw/submodule-config-cleanup later to maint).
416 * Git shows a message to tell the user that it is waiting for the
417 user to finish editing when spawning an editor, in case the editor
418 opens to a hidden window or somewhere obscure and the user gets
419 lost.
420 (merge abfb04d0c7 ls/editor-waiting-message later to maint).
422 * The "safe crlf" check incorrectly triggered for contents that does
423 not use CRLF as line endings, which has been corrected.
424 (merge 649f1f0948 tb/check-crlf-for-safe-crlf later to maint).
426 * "git clone --shared" to borrow from a (secondary) worktree did not
427 work, even though "git clone --local" did. Both are now accepted.
428 (merge b3b05971c1 es/clone-shared-worktree later to maint).
430 * The build procedure now allows not just the repositories but also
431 the refs to be used to take pre-formatted manpages and html
432 documents to install.
433 (merge 65289e9dcd rb/quick-install-doc later to maint).
435 * Update the shell prompt script (in contrib/) to strip trailing CR
436 from strings read from various "state" files.
437 (merge 041fe8fc83 ra/prompt-eread-fix later to maint).
439 * "git merge -s recursive" did not correctly abort when the index is
440 dirty, if the merged tree happened to be the same as the current
441 HEAD, which has been fixed.
443 * Bytes with high-bit set were encoded incorrectly and made
444 credential helper fail.
445 (merge 4c267f2ae3 jd/fix-strbuf-add-urlencode-bytes later to maint).
447 * "git rebase -p -X<option>" did not propagate the option properly
448 down to underlying merge strategy backend.
449 (merge dd6fb0053c js/fix-merge-arg-quoting-in-rebase-p later to maint).
451 * "git merge -s recursive" did not correctly abort when the index is
452 dirty, if the merged tree happened to be the same as the current
453 HEAD, which has been fixed.
454 (merge f309e8e768 ew/empty-merge-with-dirty-index-maint later to maint).
456 * Other minor doc, test and build updates and code cleanups.
457 (merge 1a1fc2d5b5 rd/man-prune-progress later to maint).
458 (merge 0ba014035a rd/man-reflog-add-n later to maint).
459 (merge e54b63359f rd/doc-notes-prune-fix later to maint).
460 (merge ff4c9b413a sp/doc-info-attributes later to maint).
461 (merge 7db2cbf4f1 jc/receive-pack-hook-doc later to maint).
462 (merge 5a0526264b tg/t-readme-updates later to maint).
463 (merge 5e83cca0b8 jk/no-optional-locks later to maint).
464 (merge 826c778f7c js/hashmap-update-sample later to maint).
465 (merge 176b2d328c sg/setup-doc-update later to maint).
466 (merge 1b09073514 rs/am-builtin-leakfix later to maint).
467 (merge addcf6cfde rs/fmt-merge-msg-string-leak-fix later to maint).
468 (merge c3ff8f6c14 rs/strbuf-read-once-reset-length later to maint).
469 (merge 6b0eb884f9 db/doc-workflows-neuter-the-maintainer later to maint).
470 (merge 8c87bdfb21 jk/cvsimport-quoting later to maint).
471 (merge 176cb979fe rs/fmt-merge-msg-leakfix later to maint).
472 (merge 5a03360e73 tb/delimit-pretty-trailers-args-with-comma later to maint).
473 (merge d0e6326026 ot/pretty later to maint).
474 (merge 44103f4197 sb/test-helper-excludes later to maint).
475 (merge 170078693f jt/transport-no-more-rsync later to maint).
476 (merge c07b3adff1 bw/path-doc later to maint).
477 (merge bf9d7df950 tz/lib-git-svn-svnserve-tests later to maint).
478 (merge dec366c9a8 sr/http-sslverify-config-doc later to maint).
479 (merge 3f824e91c8 jk/test-suite-tracing later to maint).
480 (merge 1feb061701 db/doc-config-section-names-with-bs later to maint).
481 (merge 74dea0e13c jh/memihash-opt later to maint).
482 (merge 2e9fdc795c ma/bisect-leakfix later to maint).