Subject: Re: [PATCH/RFC 0/7] Column output

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2011 23:42:10 -0600

Some general reflections.

Nguyen Thai Ngoc Duy wrote:
> 2011/2/9 Jeff King <[email-masked]>:

>> I don't really care for column output myself,

Me neither.  I tricked myself into reading with a vague hope that it
might lead to a porcelain-level "git ls" command.

[...]
>> But why not use the BSD column program?
>
> Solaris did not have one last time I checked. Windows obviously does
> not either, but I don't use msysgit so it does not count.

A good reason to port the "column" program, no?  I admit I find this a
compelling excuse not to bother with getting --column options and
core.column configuration right.

All that said.

Patches 1, 2, and 5 replace git help's existing columnation code
with something more reusable and functional.  After those patches,

	git --paginate help -a

no longer forces 80-column output.  Another application of
term_columns could be to teach "git log" and "git log --graph"
to wrap to terminal width some day.

So if I ran the world, I would put those three patches before
--column et al in a possible reroll. :)

Thanks for some clear and pleasant reading.
Jonathan