[rfc idle thought] exclude pattern left anchor

[Max Bowsher]

jw schultz wrote:
> A thought has been nagging me for a bit now so i'll run it
> up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes.
>
> There seems to be quite a bit of confusion regarding the use
> of the leading slash as a top of tree anchor for exclude
> patterns.  The manpage seems clear enough to me but somehow
> it doesn't seem to get through.
>
> What if we allowed a leading circumflex (^) to serve the
> same function.  We could then change the documentation to
> reflect the newer usage.
>
> People are used to a leading ^ meaning anchor-left.
> It does have the disadvantage of making it difficult to
> match filenames with a leading ^ but those are quite rare.
>
> I wouldn't even think of such a change were it not for the
> frequency with which people confuse the meaning of a leading
> slash.

OK, here is one user's opinion:

Using the / as an anchor seems more elegant to me, given that it means the
root of the synced area.

Also, I can't help wondering if people would then get confused and try to
use regexps as exclude patterns.


Max.