RelNotes/2.50.0.adoc

Git v2.50 Release Notes
=======================

UI, Workflows & Features
------------------------

 * A post-processing filter for "diff --raw" output has been
   introduced.

 * "git repack" learned "--combine-cruft-below-size" option that
   controls how cruft-packs are combined.

 * TCP keepalive behaviour on http transports can now be configured by
   calling cURL library.

 * Incrementally updating multi-pack index files.


Performance, Internal Implementation, Development Support etc.
--------------------------------------------------------------

 * A handful of built-in command implementations have been rewritten
   to use the repository instance supplied by git.c:run_builtin(), its
   caller.

 * "git fsck" becomes more careful when checking the refs.

 * "git fast-export | git fast-import" learns to deal with commit and
   tag objects with embedded signatures a bit better.

 * The code paths to check whether a refname X is available (by seeing
   if another ref X/Y exists, etc.) have been optimized.

 * First step of deprecating and removing merge-recursive.

 * In protocol v2 where the refs advertisement is constrained, we try
   to tell the server side not to limit the advertisement when there
   is no specific need to, which has been the source of confusion and
   recent bugs.  Revamp the logic to simplify.

 * Update meson based build procedure for breaking changes support.

 * Enable -Wunreachable-code for developer builds.

 * Ensure what we write in assert() does not have side effects,
   and introduce ASSERT() macro to mark those that cannot be
   mechanically checked for lack of side effects.

 * Give more meaningful error return values from block writer layer of
   the reftable ref-API backend.

 * Make the code in reftable library less reliant on the service
   routines it used to borrow from Git proper, to make it easier to
   use by external users of the library.

 * CI update.


Fixes since v2.49
-----------------

 * The refname exclusion logic in the packed-ref backend has been
   broken for some time, which confused upload-pack to advertise
   different set of refs.  This has been corrected.
   (merge 10e8a9352b tb/refs-exclude-fixes later to maint).

 * The merge-recursive and merge-ort machinery crashed in corner cases
   when certain renames are involved.
   (merge 3adba40858 en/merge-process-renames-crash-fix later to maint).

 * Certain "cruft" objects would have never been refreshed when there
   are multiple cruft packs in the repository, which has been
   corrected.
   (merge 08f612ba70 tb/multi-cruft-pack-refresh-fix later to maint).

 * The xdiff code on 32-bit platform misbehaved when an insanely large
   context size is given, which has been corrected.
   (merge d39e28e68c rs/xdiff-context-length-fix later to maint).

 * GitHub Actions CI switched on a CI/CD variable that does not exist
   when choosing what packages to install etc., which has been
   corrected.
   (merge ee89f7c79d kn/ci-meson-check-build-docs-fix later to maint).

 * Using "git name-rev --stdin" as an example, improve the framework to
   prepare tests to pretend to be in the future where the breaking
   changes have already happened.
   (merge de3dec1187 jc/name-rev-stdin later to maint).

 * An earlier code refactoring of the hash machinery missed a few
   required calls to init_fn.
   (merge d39f04b638 jh/hash-init-fixes later to maint).

 * A documentation page was left out from formatting and installation,
   which has been corrected.
   (merge ae85116f18 pw/build-breaking-changes-doc later to maint).

 * The bash command line completion script (in contrib/) has been
   updated to cope with remote repository nicknames with slashes in
   them.
   (merge 778d2f1760 dm/completion-remote-names-fix later to maint).

 * "Dubious ownership" checks on Windows has been tightened up.
   (merge 5bb88e89ef js/mingw-admins-are-special later to maint).

 * Layout configuration in vimdiff backend didn't work as advertised,
   which has been corrected.
   (merge 93bab2d04b fr/vimdiff-layout-fixes later to maint).

 * Other code cleanup, docfix, build fix, etc.
   (merge 227c4f33a0 ja/doc-block-delimiter-markup-fix later to maint).
   (merge 2bfd3b3685 ab/decorate-code-cleanup later to maint).
   (merge 5337daddc7 am/dir-dedup-decl-of-repository later to maint).
   (merge 554051d691 en/diff-rename-follow-fix later to maint).
   (merge a18c18b470 en/random-cleanups later to maint).
   (merge 5af21c9acb hj/doc-rev-list-ancestry-fix later to maint).
   (merge 26d76ca284 aj/doc-restore-p-update later to maint).
   (merge 2c0dcb9754 cc/lop-remote later to maint).
   (merge 7b399322a2 ja/doc-branch-markup later to maint).
   (merge ee434e1807 pw/doc-pack-refs-markup-fix later to maint).
   (merge c000918eb7 tb/bitamp-typofix later to maint).
   (merge fa8cd29676 js/imap-send-peer-cert-verify later to maint).
   (merge 98b423bc1c rs/clear-commit-marks-simplify later to maint).
   (merge 133d065dd6 ta/bulk-checkin-signed-compare-false-warning-fix later to maint).
   (merge d2827dc31e es/meson-build-skip-coccinelle later to maint).
   (merge ee8edb7156 dk/vimdiff-doc-fix later to maint).