1 GIT v1.5.5 Release Notes
2 ========================
4 Updates since v1.5.4
5 --------------------
7 (subsystems)
9 * Comes with git-gui 0.10.1
11 (portability)
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.
17 * Bunch of portability improvement patches coming from an effort to port
18 to Solaris has been applied.
20 (performance)
22 * On platforms with suboptimal qsort(3) implementation, there
23 is an option to use more reasonable substitute we ship with
24 our software.
26 * New configuration variable "pack.packsizelimit" can be used
27 in place of command line option --max-pack-size.
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.
34 * "git commit" does not run lstat(2) more than necessary
35 anymore.
37 (usability, bells and whistles)
39 * Bash completion script (in contrib) are aware of more commands and
40 options.
42 * You can be warned when core.autocrlf conversion is applied in
43 such a way that results in an irreversible conversion.
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".
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.
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.
59 * A pattern "foo/" in .gitignore file now matches a directory
60 "foo". Pattern "foo" also matches as before.
62 * bash completion's prompt helper function can talk about
63 operation in-progress (e.g. merge, rebase, etc.).
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.
69 * "git add -i" behaves better even before you make an initial commit.
71 * "git am" refused to run from a subdirectory without a good reason.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
98 * "git cvsimport" can now take more than one -M options.
100 * "git describe" learned to limit the tags to be used for
101 naming with --match option.
103 * "git describe --contains" now barfs when the named commit
104 cannot be described.
106 * "git describe --exact-match" describes only commits that are tagged.
108 * "git describe --long" describes a tagged commit as $tag-0-$sha1,
109 instead of just showing the exact tagname.
111 * "git describe" warns when using a tag whose name and path contradict
112 with each other.
114 * "git diff" learned "--relative" option to limit and output paths
115 relative to the current directory when working in a subdirectory.
117 * "git diff" learned "--dirstat" option to show birds-eye-summary of
118 changes more concisely than "--diffstat".
120 * "git format-patch" learned --cover-letter option to generate a cover
121 letter template.
123 * "git gc" learned --quiet option.
125 * "git gc" now automatically prunes unreachable objects that are two
126 weeks old or older.
128 * "git gc --auto" can be disabled more easily by just setting gc.auto
129 to zero. It also tolerates more packfiles by default.
131 * "git grep" now knows "--name-only" is a synonym for the "-l" option.
133 * "git help <alias>" now reports "'git <alias>' is alias to <what>",
134 instead of saying "No manual entry for git-<alias>".
136 * "git help" can use different backends to show manual pages and this can
137 be configured using "man.viewer" configuration.
139 * "gitk" does not restore window position from $HOME/.gitk anymore (it
140 still restores the size).
142 * "git log --grep=<what>" learned "--fixed-strings" option to look for
143 <what> without treating it as a regular expression.
145 * "git gui" learned an auto-spell checking.
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.
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.
155 * "git send-email" learned to prompt for passwords
156 interactively.
158 * "git send-email" learned an easier way to suppress CC
159 recipients.
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.
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.
169 * Various "git cvsimport", "git cvsexportcommit", "git cvsserver",
170 "git svn" and "git p4" improvements.
172 (internal)
174 * Duplicated code between git-help and git-instaweb that
175 launches user's preferred browser has been refactored.
177 * It is now easier to write test scripts that records known
178 breakages.
180 * "git checkout" is rewritten in C.
182 * "git remote" is rewritten in C.
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.
188 * Run-command API's use of file descriptors is documented clearer and
189 is more consistent now.
191 * diff output can be sent to FILE * that is different from stdout. This
192 will help reimplementing more things in C.
194 Fixes since v1.5.4
195 ------------------
197 All of the fixes in v1.5.4 maintenance series are included in
198 this release, unless otherwise noted.
200 * "git-http-push" did not allow deletion of remote ref with the usual
201 "push <remote> :<branch>" syntax.
203 * "git-rebase --abort" did not go back to the right location if
204 "git-reset" was run during the "git-rebase" session.
206 * "git imap-send" without setting imap.host did not error out but
207 segfaulted.