Subject: Re: [GSoC][RFC PATCH v3 1/3] builtin/refs: add list subcommand

From: Patrick Steinhardt <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2025 07:58:14 +0200

On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 12:13:11PM +0530, Meet Soni wrote:
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-for-each-ref.adoc b/Documentation/git-for-each-ref.adoc
> index 5ef89fc0fe..f7bbc1902a 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-for-each-ref.adoc
> +++ b/Documentation/git-for-each-ref.adoc

Tiny nit, not worth a reroll by itself: it would have been nice to move
the extraction of the common options from our docs into a separate,
preparatory commit.

> diff --git a/builtin/for-each-ref.c b/builtin/for-each-ref.c
> index 3d2207ec77..d7d8279049 100644
> --- a/builtin/for-each-ref.c
> +++ b/builtin/for-each-ref.c
> @@ -16,11 +16,27 @@ static char const * const for_each_ref_usage[] = {
>  	NULL
>  };
>  
> +#define REFS_LIST_USAGE \
> +	N_("git refs list [--count=<count>] [--shell|--perl|--python|--tcl]\n" \
> +	   "              [(--sort=<key>)...] [--format=<format>]\n" \
> +	   "              [--include-root-refs] [ --stdin | <pattern>... ]\n" \
> +	   "              [--points-at=<object>]\n" \
> +	   "              [--merged[=<object>]] [--no-merged[=<object>]]\n" \
> +	   "              [--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]\n" \
> +	   "              [--exclude=<pattern> ...]")
> +
> +static char const * const refs_list_usage[] = {
> +	REFS_LIST_USAGE,
> +	NULL
> +};

Shouldn't the usage strings for git-for-each-ref(1) and git-refs-list(1)
be the same, except for the command name?

>  int cmd_for_each_ref(int argc,
>  		     const char **argv,
>  		     const char *prefix,
>  		     struct repository *repo)
>  {
> +	int cmd_is_refs_list = !strcmp(argv[0], "refs list");
> +	const char *const *opt_usage = cmd_is_refs_list ? refs_list_usage : for_each_ref_usage;
>  	struct ref_sorting *sorting;
>  	struct string_list sorting_options = STRING_LIST_INIT_DUP;
>  	int icase = 0, include_root_refs = 0, from_stdin = 0;

This follows the same pattern we have in "builtin/blame.c". It's not
exactly pretty that git-for-each-ref(1) is aware of git-refs(1) now, but
I think it's the pragmatic thing to do.

> diff --git a/builtin/refs.c b/builtin/refs.c
> index 998d2a2c1c..41e29d1b5f 100644
> --- a/builtin/refs.c
> +++ b/builtin/refs.c
> @@ -13,6 +14,15 @@
>  #define REFS_VERIFY_USAGE \
>  	N_("git refs verify [--strict] [--verbose]")
>  
> +#define REFS_LIST_USAGE \
> +	N_("git refs list [--count=<count>] [--shell|--perl|--python|--tcl]\n" \
> +	   "              [(--sort=<key>)...] [--format=<format>]\n" \
> +	   "              [--include-root-refs] [ --stdin | <pattern>... ]\n" \
> +	   "              [--points-at=<object>]\n" \
> +	   "              [--merged[=<object>]] [--no-merged[=<object>]]\n" \
> +	   "              [--contains[=<object>]] [--no-contains[=<object>]]\n" \
> +	   "              [--exclude=<pattern> ...]")
> +
>  static int cmd_refs_migrate(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix,
>  			    struct repository *repo UNUSED)
>  {

Hm, this one is a bit unfortunate though, as it feels like it's just a
matter of time before the two `REFS_LIST_USAGE` defines drift apart.
Might be worth it to move them to a shared place.

Alternatively, we could pull out the logic of `cmd_for_each_ref()` into
a separate function that also receives the usage array. Not sure whether
that is worth the hassle though.

Another alternative would be to just say `git refs list [<options>]`.
This here