Documentation/RelNotes-1.5.4.txt

   1 GIT v1.5.4 Release Notes
   2 ========================
   3
   4 Removal
   5 -------
   6
   7  * "git svnimport" was removed in favor of "git svn".  It is still there
   8    in the source tree (contrib/examples) but unsupported.
   9
  10  * As git-commit and git-status have been rewritten, "git runstatus"
  11    helper script lost all its users and has been removed.
  12
  13
  14 Temporarily disabled
  15 --------------------
  16
  17  * "git http-push" is known not to work well with cURL library older
  18    than 7.16, and we had reports of repository corruption.  It is
  19    disabled on such platforms for now.  Unfortunately, 1.5.3.8 shares
  20    the same issue.  In other words, this does not mean you will be
  21    fine if you stick to an older git release.  For now, please do not
  22    use http-push from older git with cURL older than 7.16 if you
  23    value your data. A proper fix will hopefully materialize in
  24    later versions.
  25
  26
  27 Deprecation notices
  28 -------------------
  29
  30  * From v1.6.0, git will by default install dashed form of commands
  31    (e.g. "git-commit") outside of users' normal $PATH, and will install
  32    only selected commands ("git" itself, and "gitk") in $PATH.  This
  33    implies:
  34
  35    - Using dashed forms of git commands (e.g. "git-commit") from the
  36      command line has been informally deprecated since early 2006, but
  37      now it officially is, and will be removed in the future.  Use
  38      dash-less forms (e.g. "git commit") instead.
  39
  40    - Using dashed forms from your scripts, without first prepending the
  41      return value from "git --exec-path" to the scripts' PATH, has been
  42      informally deprecated since early 2006, but now it officially is.
  43
  44    - Use of dashed forms with "PATH=$(git --exec-path):$PATH; export
  45      PATH" early in your script is not deprecated with this change.
  46
  47    Users are strongly encouraged to adjust their habits and scripts now
  48    to prepare for this change.
  49
  50  * The post-receive hook was introduced in March 2007 to supersede
  51    the post-update hook, primarily to overcome the command line length
  52    limitation of the latter.  Use of post-update hook will be deprecated
  53    in future versions of git, starting from v1.6.0.
  54
  55  * "git lost-found" was deprecated in favor of "git fsck"'s --lost-found
  56    option, and will be removed in the future.
  57
  58  * "git peek-remote" is deprecated, as "git ls-remote" was written in C
  59    and works for all transports; "git peek-remote" will be removed in
  60    the future.
  61
  62  * "git repo-config" which was an old name for "git config" command
  63    has been supported without being advertised for a long time.  The
  64    next feature release will remove it.
  65
  66  * From v1.6.0, the repack.usedeltabaseoffset config option will default
  67    to true, which will give denser packfiles (i.e. more efficient storage).
  68    The downside is that git older than version 1.4.4 will not be able
  69    to directly use a repository packed using this setting.
  70
  71  * From v1.6.0, the pack.indexversion config option will default to 2,
  72    which is slightly more efficient, and makes repacking more immune to
  73    data corruptions.  Git older than version 1.5.2 may revert to version 1
  74    of the pack index with a manual "git index-pack" to be able to directly
  75    access corresponding pack files.
  76
  77
  78 Updates since v1.5.3
  79 --------------------
  80
  81  * Comes with much improved gitk, with i18n.
  82
  83  * Comes with git-gui 0.9.2 with i18n.
  84
  85  * gitk is now merged as a subdirectory of git.git project, in
  86    preparation for its i18n.
  87
  88  * progress displays from many commands are a lot nicer to the eye.
  89    Transfer commands show throughput data.
  90
  91  * many commands that pay attention to per-directory .gitignore now do
  92    so lazily, which makes the usual case go much faster.
  93
  94  * Output processing for '--pretty=format:<user format>' has been
  95    optimized.
  96
  97  * Rename detection of diff family while detecting exact matches has
  98    been greatly optimized.
  99
 100  * Rename detection of diff family tries to make more natural looking
 101    pairing.  Earlier, if multiple identical rename sources were
 102    found in the preimage, the source used was picked pretty much at random.
 103
 104  * Value "true" for color.diff and color.status configuration used to
 105    mean "always" (even when the output is not going to a terminal).
 106    This has been corrected to mean the same thing as "auto".
 107
 108  * "git diff" Porcelain now respects diff.external configuration, which
 109    is another way to specify GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF.
 110
 111  * "git diff" can be told to use different prefixes other than
 112    "a/" and "b/" e.g. "git diff --src-prefix=l/ --dst-prefix=k/".
 113
 114  * "git diff" sometimes did not quote paths with funny
 115    characters properly.
 116
 117  * "git log" (and any revision traversal commands) misbehaved
 118    when --diff-filter is given but was not asked to actually
 119    produce diff.
 120
 121  * HTTP proxy can be specified per remote repository using
 122    remote.*.httpproxy configuration, or global http.proxy configuration
 123    variable.
 124
 125  * Various Perforce importer updates.
 126
 127  * Example update and post-receive hooks have been improved.
 128
 129  * Any command that wants to take a commit object name can now use
 130    ":/string" syntax to name a commit.
 131
 132  * "git reset" is now built-in and its output can be squelched with -q.
 133
 134  * "git reset --hard" does not make any sense in a bare
 135    repository, but did not error out; fixed.
 136
 137  * "git send-email" can optionally talk over ssmtp and use SMTP-AUTH.
 138
 139  * "git rebase" learned --whitespace option.
 140
 141  * In "git rebase", when you decide not to replay a particular change
 142    after the command stopped with a conflict, you can say "git rebase
 143    --skip" without first running "git reset --hard", as the command now
 144    runs it for you.
 145
 146  * "git rebase --interactive" mode can now work on detached HEAD.
 147
 148  * Other minor to serious bugs in "git rebase -i" have been fixed.
 149
 150  * "git rebase" now detaches head during its operation, so after a
 151    successful "git rebase" operation, the reflog entry branch@{1} for
 152    the current branch points at the commit before the rebase was
 153    started.
 154
 155  * "git rebase -i" also triggers rerere to help your repeated merges.
 156
 157  * "git merge" can call the "post-merge" hook.
 158
 159  * "git pack-objects" can optionally run deltification with multiple
 160    threads.
 161
 162  * "git archive" can optionally substitute keywords in files marked with
 163    export-subst attribute.
 164
 165  * "git cherry-pick" made a misguided attempt to repeat the original
 166    command line in the generated log message, when told to cherry-pick a
 167    commit by naming a tag that points at it.  It does not anymore.
 168
 169  * "git for-each-ref" learned %(xxxdate:<date-format>) syntax to show the
 170    various date fields in different formats.
 171
 172  * "git gc --auto" is a low-impact way to automatically run a variant of
 173    "git repack" that does not lose unreferenced objects (read: safer
 174    than the usual one) after the user accumulates too many loose
 175    objects.
 176
 177  * "git clean" has been rewritten in C.
 178
 179  * You need to explicitly set clean.requireForce to "false" to allow
 180    "git clean" without -f to do any damage (lack of the configuration
 181    variable used to mean "do not require -f option to lose untracked
 182    files", but we now use the safer default).
 183
 184  * The kinds of whitespace errors "git diff" and "git apply" notice (and
 185    fix) can be controlled via 'core.whitespace' configuration variable
 186    and 'whitespace' attribute in .gitattributes file.
 187
 188  * "git push" learned --dry-run option to show what would happen if a
 189    push is run.
 190
 191  * "git push" does not update a tracking ref on the local side when the
 192    remote refused to update the corresponding ref.
 193
 194  * "git push" learned --mirror option.  This is to push the local refs
 195    one-to-one to the remote, and deletes refs from the remote that do
 196    not exist anymore in the repository on the pushing side.
 197
 198  * "git push" can remove a corrupt ref at the remote site with the usual
 199    ":ref" refspec.
 200
 201  * "git remote" knows --mirror mode.  This is to set up configuration to
 202    push into a remote repository to store local branch heads to the same
 203    branch on the remote side, and remove branch heads locally removed
 204    from local repository at the same time.  Suitable for pushing into a
 205    back-up repository.
 206
 207  * "git remote" learned "rm" subcommand.
 208
 209  * "git cvsserver" can be run via "git shell".  Also, "cvs" is
 210    recognized as a synonym for "git cvsserver", so that CVS users
 211    can be switched to git just by changing their login shell.
 212
 213  * "git cvsserver" acts more like receive-pack by running post-receive
 214    and post-update hooks.
 215
 216  * "git am" and "git rebase" are far less verbose.
 217
 218  * "git pull" learned to pass --[no-]ff option to underlying "git
 219    merge".
 220
 221  * "git pull --rebase" is a different way to integrate what you fetched
 222    into your current branch.
 223
 224  * "git fast-export" produces data-stream that can be fed to fast-import
 225    to reproduce the history recorded in a git repository.
 226
 227  * "git add -i" takes pathspecs to limit the set of files to work on.
 228
 229  * "git add -p" is a short-hand to go directly to the selective patch
 230    subcommand in the interactive command loop and to exit when done.
 231
 232  * "git add -i" UI has been colorized.  The interactive prompt
 233    and menu can be colored by setting color.interactive
 234    configuration.  The diff output (including the hunk picker)
 235    are colored with color.diff configuration.
 236
 237  * "git commit --allow-empty" allows you to create a single-parent
 238    commit that records the same tree as its parent, overriding the usual
 239    safety valve.
 240
 241  * "git commit --amend" can amend a merge that does not change the tree
 242    from its first parent.
 243
 244  * "git commit" used to unconditionally strip comment lines that
 245    began with '#' and removed excess blank lines.  This behavior has
 246    been made configurable.
 247
 248  * "git commit" has been rewritten in C.
 249
 250  * "git stash random-text" does not create a new stash anymore.  It was
 251    a UI mistake.  Use "git stash save random-text", or "git stash"
 252    (without extra args) for that.
 253
 254  * "git stash clear extra-text" does not clear the whole stash
 255    anymore.  It is tempting to expect "git stash clear stash@{2}"
 256    to drop only a single named stash entry, and it is rude to
 257    discard everything when that is asked (but not provided).
 258
 259  * "git prune --expire <time>" can exempt young loose objects from
 260    getting pruned.
 261
 262  * "git branch --contains <commit>" can list branches that are
 263    descendants of a given commit.
 264
 265  * "git log" learned --early-output option to help interactive GUI
 266    implementations.
 267
 268  * "git bisect" learned "skip" action to mark untestable commits.
 269
 270  * "git bisect visualize" learned a shorter synonym "git bisect view".
 271
 272  * "git bisect visualize" runs "git log" in a non-windowed
 273    environments.  It also can be told what command to run (e.g. "git
 274    bisect visualize tig").
 275
 276  * "git format-patch" learned "format.numbered" configuration variable
 277    to automatically turn --numbered option on when more than one commits
 278    are formatted.
 279
 280  * "git ls-files" learned "--exclude-standard" to use the canned set of
 281    exclude files.
 282
 283  * "git tag -a -f existing" begins the editor session using the existing
 284    annotation message.
 285
 286  * "git tag -m one -m bar" (multiple -m options) behaves similarly to
 287    "git commit"; the parameters to -m options are formatted as separate
 288    paragraphs.
 289
 290  * The format "git show" outputs an annotated tag has been updated to
 291    include "Tagger: " and "Date: " lines from the tag itself.  Strictly
 292    speaking this is a backward incompatible change, but this is a
 293    reasonable usability fix and people's scripts shouldn't have been
 294    relying on the exact output from "git show" Porcelain anyway.
 295
 296  * "git cvsimport" did not notice errors from underlying "cvsps"
 297    and produced a corrupt import silently.
 298
 299  * "git cvsexportcommit" learned -w option to specify and switch to the
 300    CVS working directory.
 301
 302  * "git checkout" from a subdirectory learned to use "../path" to allow
 303    checking out a path outside the current directory without cd'ing up.
 304
 305  * "git checkout" from and to detached HEAD leaves a bit more
 306    information in the reflog.
 307
 308  * "git send-email --dry-run" shows full headers for easier diagnosis.
 309
 310  * "git merge-ours" is now built-in.
 311
 312  * "git svn" learned "info" and "show-externals" subcommands.
 313
 314  * "git svn" run from a subdirectory failed to read settings from the
 315    .git/config.
 316
 317  * "git svn" learned --use-log-author option, which picks up more
 318    descriptive name from From: and Signed-off-by: lines in the commit
 319    message.
 320
 321  * "git svn" wasted way too much disk to record revision mappings
 322    between svn and git; a new representation that is much more compact
 323    for this information has been introduced to correct this.
 324
 325  * "git svn" left temporary index files it used without cleaning them
 326    up; this was corrected.
 327
 328  * "git status" from a subdirectory now shows relative paths, which
 329    makes copy-and-pasting for git-checkout/git-add/git-rm easier.  The
 330    traditional behavior to show the full path relative to the top of
 331    the work tree can be had by setting status.relativepaths
 332    configuration variable to false.
 333
 334  * "git blame" kept text for each annotated revision in core needlessly;
 335    this has been corrected.
 336
 337  * "git shortlog" learned to default to HEAD when the standard input is
 338    a terminal and the user did not give any revision parameter.
 339
 340  * "git shortlog" learned "-e" option to show e-mail addresses as well as
 341    authors' names.
 342
 343  * "git help" learned "-w" option to show documentation in browsers.
 344
 345  * In addition there are quite a few internal clean-ups. Notably:
 346
 347    - many fork/exec have been replaced with run-command API,
 348      brought from the msysgit effort.
 349
 350    - introduction and more use of the option parser API.
 351
 352    - enhancement and more use of the strbuf API.
 353
 354  * Makefile tweaks to support HP-UX is in.
 355
 356 Fixes since v1.5.3
 357 ------------------
 358
 359 All of the fixes in v1.5.3 maintenance series are included in
 360 this release, unless otherwise noted.
 361
 362 These fixes are only in v1.5.4 and not backported to v1.5.3 maintenance
 363 series.
 364
 365  * The way "git diff --check" behaves is much more consistent with the way
 366    "git apply --whitespace=warn" works.
 367
 368  * "git svn" talking with the SVN over HTTP will correctly quote branch
 369    and project names.
 370
 371  * "git config" did not work correctly on platforms that define
 372    REG_NOMATCH to an even number.
 373
 374  * Recent versions of AsciiDoc 8 has a change to break our
 375    documentation; a workaround has been implemented.
 376
 377  * "git diff --color-words" colored context lines in a wrong color.