GIT v1.5.5 Release Notes
========================

Updates since v1.5.4
--------------------

(performance)

 * On platforms with suboptimal qsort(3) implementation, there
   is an option to use more reasonable substitute we ship with
   our software.

 * New configuration variable "pack.packsizelimit" can be used
   in place of command line option --max-pack-size.

 * "git fetch" over the native git protocol used to make a
   connection to find out the set of current remote refs and
   another to actually download the pack data.  We now use only
   one connection for these tasks.

 * "git commit" does not run lstat(2) more than necessary
   anymore.

(usability, bells and whistles)

 * You can be warned when core.autocrlf conversion is applied in
   such a way that results in an irreversible conversion.

 * A catch-all "color.ui" configuration variable can be used to
   enable coloring of all color-capable commands, instead of
   individual ones such as "color.status" and "color.branch".

 * The commands refused to take absolute pathnames where they
   require pathnames relative to the work tree or the current
   subdirectory.  They now can take absolute pathnames in such a
   case as long as the pathnames do not refer outside of the
   work tree.  E.g. "git add $(pwd)/foo" now works.

 * Error messages used to be sent to stderr, only to get hidden,
   when $PAGER was in use.  They now are sent to stdout along
   with the command output to be shown in the $PAGER.

 * A pattern "foo/" in .gitignore file now matches a directory
   "foo".  Pattern "foo" also matches as before.

 * bash completion's prompt helper function can talk about
   operation in-progress (e.g. merge, rebase, etc.).

 * Configuration variables "url.<usethis>.insteadof = <otherurl>" can be
   used to tell "git-fetch" and "git-push" to use different URL than what
   is given from the command line.

 * "git push <somewhere> HEAD" and "git push <somewhere> +HEAD" works as
   expected; they push the current branch (and only the current branch).
   In addition, HEAD can be written as the value of "remote.<there>.push"
   configuration variable.

 * "git add -i" behaves better even before you make an initial commit.

 * After "git apply --whitespace=fix" fixes whitespace errors in a patch,
   a line before the fix can appear as a context or preimage line in a
   later patch, causing the patch not to apply.  The command now knows to
   see through whitespace fixes done to context lines to successfully
   apply such a patch series.

 * "git branch" (and "git checkout -b") to branch from a local branch can
   optionally set "branch.<name>.merge" to mark the new branch to build on
   the other local branch, when "branch.autosetupmerge" is set to
   "always".  By default, this does not happen when branching from a local
   branch.

 * "git checkout" to switch to a branch that has "branch.<name>.merge" set
   (i.e. marked to build on another branch) reports how much the branch
   and the other branch diverged.

 * When "git checkout" has to update a lot of paths, it used to be silent
   for 4 seconds before it showed any progress report.  It is now a bit
   more impatient and starts showing progress report early.

 * "git commit" learned a new hook "prepare-commit-msg" that can
   inspect what is going to be committed and prepare the commit
   log message template to be edited.

 * "git describe" learned to limit the tags to be used for
   naming with --match option.

 * "git describe --contains" now barfs when the named commit
   cannot be described.

 * "git describe --exact-match" describes only commits that are tagged.

 * "git diff" learned "--relative" option to limit and output paths
   relative to the current directory when working in a subdirectory.

 * "git diff" learned "--dirstat" option to show birds-eye-summary of
   changes more concisely than "--diffstat".

 * "git format-patch" learned --cover-letter option to generate a cover
   letter template.

 * "git grep" now knows "--name-only" is a synonym for the "-l" option.

 * "git help <alias>" now reports "'git <alias>' is alias to <what>",
   instead of saying "No manual entry for git-<alias>".

 * "git log --grep=<what>" learned "--fixed-strings" option to look for
   <what> without treating it as a regular expression.

 * "git gui" learned an auto-spell checking.

 * "git send-email" learned to prompt for passwords
   interactively.

 * "git send-email" learned an easier way to suppress CC
   recipients.

 * When the configuration variable "pack.threads" is set to 0, "git
   repack" auto detects the number of CPUs and uses that many threads.

 * Various "git cvsimport", "git cvsexportcommit", "git svn" and
   "git p4" improvements.

(internal)

 * Duplicated code between git-help and git-instaweb that
   launches user's preferred browser has been refactored.

 * It is now easier to write test scripts that records known
   breakages.

 * "git checkout" is rewritten in C.

 * Two conflict hunks that are separated by a very short span of common
   lines are now coalesced into one larger hunk, to make the result easier
   to read.

 * Run-command API's use of file descriptors is documented clearer and
   is more consistent now.


Fixes since v1.5.4
------------------

All of the fixes in v1.5.4 maintenance series are included in
this release, unless otherwise noted.

---
exec >/var/tmp/1
O=v1.5.4.3-339-g7cf7f54
echo O=`git describe refs/heads/master`
git shortlog --no-merges $O..refs/heads/master ^refs/heads/maint