Documentation/RelNotes/1.5.5.txt

   1 GIT v1.5.5 Release Notes
   2 ========================
   3
   4 Updates since v1.5.4
   5 --------------------
   6
   7 (subsystems)
   8
   9  * Comes with git-gui 0.10.1
  10
  11 (portability)
  12
  13  * We shouldn't ask for BSD group ownership semantics by setting g+s bit
  14    on directories on older BSD systems that refuses chmod() by non root
  15    users.  BSD semantics is the default there anyway.
  16
  17  * Bunch of portability improvement patches coming from an effort to port
  18    to Solaris has been applied.
  19
  20 (performance)
  21
  22  * On platforms with suboptimal qsort(3) implementation, there
  23    is an option to use more reasonable substitute we ship with
  24    our software.
  25
  26  * New configuration variable "pack.packsizelimit" can be used
  27    in place of command line option --max-pack-size.
  28
  29  * "git fetch" over the native git protocol used to make a
  30    connection to find out the set of current remote refs and
  31    another to actually download the pack data.  We now use only
  32    one connection for these tasks.
  33
  34  * "git commit" does not run lstat(2) more than necessary
  35    anymore.
  36
  37 (usability, bells and whistles)
  38
  39  * Bash completion script (in contrib) are aware of more commands and
  40    options.
  41
  42  * You can be warned when core.autocrlf conversion is applied in
  43    such a way that results in an irreversible conversion.
  44
  45  * A catch-all "color.ui" configuration variable can be used to
  46    enable coloring of all color-capable commands, instead of
  47    individual ones such as "color.status" and "color.branch".
  48
  49  * The commands refused to take absolute pathnames where they
  50    require pathnames relative to the work tree or the current
  51    subdirectory.  They now can take absolute pathnames in such a
  52    case as long as the pathnames do not refer outside of the
  53    work tree.  E.g. "git add $(pwd)/foo" now works.
  54
  55  * Error messages used to be sent to stderr, only to get hidden,
  56    when $PAGER was in use.  They now are sent to stdout along
  57    with the command output to be shown in the $PAGER.
  58
  59  * A pattern "foo/" in .gitignore file now matches a directory
  60    "foo".  Pattern "foo" also matches as before.
  61
  62  * bash completion's prompt helper function can talk about
  63    operation in-progress (e.g. merge, rebase, etc.).
  64
  65  * Configuration variables "url.<usethis>.insteadof = <otherurl>" can be
  66    used to tell "git-fetch" and "git-push" to use different URL than what
  67    is given from the command line.
  68
  69  * "git add -i" behaves better even before you make an initial commit.
  70
  71  * "git am" refused to run from a subdirectory without a good reason.
  72
  73  * After "git apply --whitespace=fix" fixes whitespace errors in a patch,
  74    a line before the fix can appear as a context or preimage line in a
  75    later patch, causing the patch not to apply.  The command now knows to
  76    see through whitespace fixes done to context lines to successfully
  77    apply such a patch series.
  78
  79  * "git branch" (and "git checkout -b") to branch from a local branch can
  80    optionally set "branch.<name>.merge" to mark the new branch to build on
  81    the other local branch, when "branch.autosetupmerge" is set to
  82    "always", or when passing the command line option "--track" (this option
  83    was ignored when branching from local branches).  By default, this does
  84    not happen when branching from a local branch.
  85
  86  * "git checkout" to switch to a branch that has "branch.<name>.merge" set
  87    (i.e. marked to build on another branch) reports how much the branch
  88    and the other branch diverged.
  89
  90  * When "git checkout" has to update a lot of paths, it used to be silent
  91    for 4 seconds before it showed any progress report.  It is now a bit
  92    more impatient and starts showing progress report early.
  93
  94  * "git commit" learned a new hook "prepare-commit-msg" that can
  95    inspect what is going to be committed and prepare the commit
  96    log message template to be edited.
  97
  98  * "git cvsimport" can now take more than one -M options.
  99
 100  * "git describe" learned to limit the tags to be used for
 101    naming with --match option.
 102
 103  * "git describe --contains" now barfs when the named commit
 104    cannot be described.
 105
 106  * "git describe --exact-match" describes only commits that are tagged.
 107
 108  * "git describe --long" describes a tagged commit as $tag-0-$sha1,
 109    instead of just showing the exact tagname.
 110
 111  * "git describe" warns when using a tag whose name and path contradict
 112    with each other.
 113
 114  * "git diff" learned "--relative" option to limit and output paths
 115    relative to the current directory when working in a subdirectory.
 116
 117  * "git diff" learned "--dirstat" option to show birds-eye-summary of
 118    changes more concisely than "--diffstat".
 119
 120  * "git format-patch" learned --cover-letter option to generate a cover
 121    letter template.
 122
 123  * "git gc" learned --quiet option.
 124
 125  * "git gc" now automatically prunes unreachable objects that are two
 126    weeks old or older.
 127
 128  * "git gc --auto" can be disabled more easily by just setting gc.auto
 129    to zero.  It also tolerates more packfiles by default.
 130
 131  * "git grep" now knows "--name-only" is a synonym for the "-l" option.
 132
 133  * "git help <alias>" now reports "'git <alias>' is alias to <what>",
 134    instead of saying "No manual entry for git-<alias>".
 135
 136  * "git help" can use different backends to show manual pages and this can
 137    be configured using "man.viewer" configuration.
 138
 139  * "gitk" does not restore window position from $HOME/.gitk anymore (it
 140    still restores the size).
 141
 142  * "git log --grep=<what>" learned "--fixed-strings" option to look for
 143    <what> without treating it as a regular expression.
 144
 145  * "git gui" learned an auto-spell checking.
 146
 147  * "git push <somewhere> HEAD" and "git push <somewhere> +HEAD" works as
 148    expected; they push the current branch (and only the current branch).
 149    In addition, HEAD can be written as the value of "remote.<there>.push"
 150    configuration variable.
 151
 152  * When the configuration variable "pack.threads" is set to 0, "git
 153    repack" auto detects the number of CPUs and uses that many threads.
 154
 155  * "git send-email" learned to prompt for passwords
 156    interactively.
 157
 158  * "git send-email" learned an easier way to suppress CC
 159    recipients.
 160
 161  * "git stash" learned "pop" command, that applies the latest stash and
 162    removes it from the stash, and "drop" command to discard the named
 163    stash entry.
 164
 165  * "git submodule" learned a new subcommand "summary" to show the
 166    symmetric difference between the HEAD version and the work tree version
 167    of the submodule commits.
 168
 169  * Various "git cvsimport", "git cvsexportcommit", "git cvsserver",
 170    "git svn" and "git p4" improvements.
 171
 172 (internal)
 173
 174  * Duplicated code between git-help and git-instaweb that
 175    launches user's preferred browser has been refactored.
 176
 177  * It is now easier to write test scripts that records known
 178    breakages.
 179
 180  * "git checkout" is rewritten in C.
 181
 182  * "git remote" is rewritten in C.
 183
 184  * Two conflict hunks that are separated by a very short span of common
 185    lines are now coalesced into one larger hunk, to make the result easier
 186    to read.
 187
 188  * Run-command API's use of file descriptors is documented clearer and
 189    is more consistent now.
 190
 191  * diff output can be sent to FILE * that is different from stdout.  This
 192    will help reimplementing more things in C.
 193
 194 Fixes since v1.5.4
 195 ------------------
 196
 197 All of the fixes in v1.5.4 maintenance series are included in
 198 this release, unless otherwise noted.
 199
 200  * "git-http-push" did not allow deletion of remote ref with the usual
 201    "push <remote> :<branch>" syntax.
 202
 203  * "git-rebase --abort" did not go back to the right location if
 204    "git-reset" was run during the "git-rebase" session.
 205
 206  * "git imap-send" without setting imap.host did not error out but
 207    segfaulted.