Subject: [PATCH v2] gitweb: use HEAD as secondary sort key in git_get_heads_list()

From: Greg Hurrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2021 21:28:06 +0200

The "heads" section on the gitweb summary page shows heads in
`-committerdate` order (ie. the most recently-modified ones at the
top), tie-breaking equal-dated refs using the implicit `refname` sort
fallback. This recency-based ordering appears in multiple places in the
UI, such as the project listing, the tags list, and even the
shortlog and log views.

Given two equal-dated refs, however, sorting the `HEAD` ref before
the non-`HEAD` ref provides more useful signal than merely sorting by
refname. For example, say we had "master" and "trunk" both pointing at
the same commit but "trunk" was `HEAD`, sorting "trunk" first helps
communicate its special status as the default branch that you'll check
out if you clone the repo.

Add `-HEAD` as a secondary sort key to the `git for-each-ref` call
in `git_get_heads_list()` to provide the desired behavior. The most
recently committed refs will appear first, but `HEAD`-ness will be used
as a tie-breaker. Note that `refname` is the implicit fallback sort key,
which means that two same-dated non-`HEAD` refs will continue to be
sorted in lexicographical order, as they are today.

Signed-off-by: Greg Hurrell <[email-masked]>
---

As per list discussion, this is an easier sell than the prior version
of this patch (which made `HEAD` the _primary_ sort key). I'm dropping
the RFC qualifier accordingly.

Sorry for the back-and-forth on this one. Using `HEAD` is the
tie-breaker is what I wanted to do originally, but because I was
testing on an ancient Git version with a sorting bug, the
straightforward approach didn't work (:facepalm:), and I went off into
the weeds.

 gitweb/gitweb.perl | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/gitweb/gitweb.perl b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
index e09e024a09..fbd1c20a23 100755
--- a/gitweb/gitweb.perl
+++ b/gitweb/gitweb.perl
@@ -3796,7 +3796,8 @@ sub git_get_heads_list {
 	my @headslist;
 
 	open my $fd, '-|', git_cmd(), 'for-each-ref',
-		($limit ? '--count='.($limit+1) : ()), '--sort=-committerdate',
+		($limit ? '--count='.($limit+1) : ()),
+		'--sort=-HEAD', '--sort=-committerdate',
 		'--format=%(objectname) %(refname) %(subject)%00%(committer)',
 		@patterns
 		or return;
-- 
2.29.2