Subject: Re: [PATCH] git-completion: add stashes for gitk

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 12 Mar 2015 11:11:03 -0700

Sveinung Kvilhaugsvik <[email-masked]> writes:

> Auto complete stashed modifications for gitk. This makes them easier to
> discover and faster to view.
>
> Signed-off-by: Sveinung Kvilhaugsvik <[email-masked]>
> ---
>  contrib/completion/git-completion.bash | 2 ++
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+)
>
> diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> index c21190d..3a23abb 100644
> --- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> +++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> @@ -2644,6 +2644,8 @@ __gitk_main ()
>  		;;
>  	esac
>  	__git_complete_revlist
> +	__gitcomp_nl_append "$(git --git-dir="$(__gitdir)" stash list \
> +			| sed -n -e 's/:.*//p')"

I do not find it particularly useful to expand "gitk st<TAB>" to
"gitk st" and offer "sting stash@{0} stash@{1} stash@{2} stash@{3}"
('sting' happens to be just one of the names of my branches) as
possible choices.

Because I happen to have only four stash entries right now, it may
still be manageable, but the stash entries can be dozens for some
people.

Once you have dozens of branches and tags, you learn to avoid "gitk
<TAB>" (or "git log <TAB>") to prevent the completion code from
dumping all these refnames at you.  Instead, you would give a few
characters before hitting the <TAB> to limit the completion.  But
this change makes it harder if what you want happens to start with
es-tee something, as you would get many stash@{...} entries along
with it.  Also, when you have no ref that is named es-tee something,
"gitk st<TAB>" completes to "gitk stash@{", as if the problem the
change tries to cure is "it is unnecessarily hard to type at-mark
open-brace".

I do not have to be the target audience, though.  Maybe this is
useful for some people.

A bigger question is why this change is made to gitk completion.  If
this completion were useful for "gitk", wouoldn't it be equally
useful for "git log"?

Thanks.