Junio C Hamano <gits...@pobox.com> writes:
An addendum.
> As we can see in a later paragaph:
>
> The "magic signature" consists of an ASCII symbol that is not
> alphanumeric. Currently only the slash `/` is recognized as a
> "magic signature"...
>
> the correct way to read that "a character that cannot be a magic
> signature" is "a character that is not 'an ASCII symbol that is not
> alphanumeric'", which means you can do:
>
> :!/foo - with magic signatures ! and /, pattern begins at 'f'
>
> :/#abc - with magic signatures # and /, pattern begins at 'a',
> even if in a particular version of Git, '#' magic
> signature may be invalid and produce an error
>
> :/:#abc - with magic signature /, pattern is "#abc".
>
> but because the definition of "magic signature" syntax comes later
> than "cannot be", it is prone to be misinterpreted as "anything that
> is not currently defined as a magic signature (namely, '/')".
... and that misinterpretation may give a false impression that
":/#abc"
is with the magic signature '/' (i.e. match from top) for a pattern
"#abc".
Doing so would mean that a version of Git that does not support a
magic signature '#' will allow people and scripts to use ":/#abc"
with such a meaning, and will prevent us from using '#' as a new
magic signature with some useful meaning in the future. Rather, we
need to force them to always spell it as ":/:#abc" even in the
version of Git before the magic signature '#'.
And the phrasing 'if the pattern begins with a character that cannot
be a "magic signature" and is not a colon' needs to be clarified to
avoid that misinterpretation for that reason.
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