Subject: Re: How to view an old revision?

From: Andy Whitcroft <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 Nov 2006 14:46:02 +0000

Matt McCutchen wrote:
> On 11/1/06, Andy Whitcroft <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>         git cat-file -p <commit-ish>:<file>
> 
> Nice!  Thanks!  I had guessed "git cat-file -p <commit-ish>/<file>"
> but didn't try a colon as the separator.  The colon syntax ought to be
> mentioned in the git-cat-file man page.

There are some improvements in the documentation in 'next' but nothing
which would make this easier for you to find.

Junio, I wonder if we should be changing the usage for this command
slightly.  Currently, it mearly says <object> as the identifier for the
blob.  Really this is <object-ish> as it supports symbolic naming in
addition to raw sha1's.  I also feel it would be very helpful if
<commit-ish> and family were documented as a glossary section in main
git manpage.

Something like this:

<commit-ish>:: is an sha1 for a commit, or any symbolic name for a
commit (see SPECIFYING REVISIONS in git-rev-parse)

What do people think.  I can do the munging about if its seems like a
sane plan.