git-escape-magic for zsh

Synopsis

• git-escape-magic - zle tweak for git command line arguments

Description

If you are a hard-core zsh user that takes extended_glob seriously for granted, you must be annoyed with git's refspec (notation to point a commit, tree, etc.) that goes like HEAD^ or blahblah~3 because the signs like [^~{}] are globbing meta-characters for zsh that require escaping to be passed through to the git command.

Here is what this tweak is about. It eliminates the need for manually escaping those meta-characters. The zle function it provides is context aware and recognizes the characteristics of each subcommand of git. Every time you type one of these meta-characters on a git command line, it automatically escapes the meta-character with a backslash as necessary and as appropriate.

Examples:

% git reset HEAD [Hit <^>]
% git reset HEAD\^


# Escaping takes place only if necessary
% git reset HEAD\ [Hit <^>]
% git reset HEAD\^


% git reset HEAD@ [Hit <{>]
% git reset HEAD@\{


% git checkout HEAD [Hit <~>]
% git checkout HEAD\~


# Only pathspec follows after a double hyphen
% git checkout -- * [Hit <~>]
% git checkout -- *~


# The add subcommand takes no refspec
% git add * [Hit <~>]
% git add *~

How to set up

Put the file git-escape-magic somewhere in your $fpath and add these lines to your .zshrc:

autoload -Uz git-escape-magic
git-escape-magic

If you are enabling url-quote-magic, make sure to load it first and then load git-escape-magic.

License

Copyright (c) 2011, 2012, 2014 Akinori MUSHA

Licensed under the 2-clause BSD license. See LICENSE for details.