Subject: Re: [PATCH] Initialize notes trees if %N is used and no --show-notes given

From: Thomas Rast <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 13:52:21 +0200

Johannes Gilger wrote:
> 
> The first option would be confusing. I, for one, would simply put %N in
> my log and never really know that existing notes aren't displayed. I
> wasn't even sure my git.git checkout had notes, so I created one myself.
> A better behaviour would be to not expand %N if notes are disabled, so a
> user gets some kind of feedback that %N isn't working.
> 
> I'd really like %N to do the initialization. There is no other
> placeholder which requires an extra option to work, if I see it
> correctly.

%g[dDs] expand to nothing unless the log command walks reflogs, so
there is some precedent.

One thing I didn't consider in my other mail was that --pretty
automatically disables notes.  I think in my plan (%N expands to
nothing with --no-notes) this would have to change to the effect that
--pretty only disables the *normal* note-showing code, but still
initializes according to the same rules.

I'll have to check whether that amounts to the same as "silent
initialization".

> As for the builtin formats I was under the impressions that they worked
> completely outside the parser for placeholders, so one would not use
> '%N' in a builtin format, and %N initializing the notes would not
> conflict with --no-notes and builtin formats.

That's true, which is why I said "notionally".

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch