[rfc idle thought] exclude pattern left anchor

[jw schultz]

On Wed, Jun 04, 2003 at 04:40:24PM +0100, Max Bowsher wrote:
> 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.

I prefer / myself.  Once you know the paths are relative it
makes perfect sense and if you don't know that paths are
relative you're screwed anyway.

Unfortunately what makes sense to me and to you doesn't seem
to make sense to a lot of other people (surprise, surprise).
That is what i was responding to.

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

It was just a thought.

-- 
________________________________________________________________
	J.W. Schultz            Pegasystems Technologies
	email address:		jw at pegasys.ws

		Remember Cernan and Schmitt