Git v1.7.10 Release Notes
=========================

Compatibility Notes
-------------------

 * From this release on, the "git merge" command in an interactive
   session will start an editor when it automatically resolves the
   merge for the user to explain the resulting commit, just like the
   "git commit" command does when it wasn't given a commit message.

   If you have a script that runs "git merge" and keeps its standard
   input and output attached to the user's terminal, and if you do not
   want the user to explain the resulting merge commits, you can
   export GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT environment variable set to "no", like
   this:

	#!/bin/sh
	GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT=no
	export GIT_MERGE_AUTOEDIT

   to disable this behavior (if you want your users to explain their
   merge commits, you do not have to do anything).  Alternatively, you
   can give the "--no-edit" option to individual invocations of the
   "git merge" command if you know everybody who uses your script has
   Git v1.7.8 or newer.

 * The "--binary/-b" options to "git am" have been a no-op for quite a
   while and were deprecated in mid 2008 (v1.6.0).  When you give these
   options to "git am", it will now warn and ask you not to use them.

 * When you do not tell which branches and tags to push to the "git
   push" command in any way, the command used "matching refs" rule to
   update remote branches and tags with branches and tags with the
   same name you locally have.  In future versions of Git, this will
   change to push out only your current branch according to either the
   "upstream" or the "current" rule.  Although "upstream" may be more
   powerful once the user understands Git better, the semantics
   "current" gives is simpler and easier to understand for beginners
   and may be a safer and better default option.  We haven't decided
   yet which one to switch to.


Updates since v1.7.9
--------------------

UI, Workflows & Features

 * various "gitk" updates.
   - show the path to the top level directory in the window title
   - update preference edit dialog
   - display file list correctly when directories are given on command line
   - make "git-describe" output in the log message into a clickable link
   - avoid matching the UNIX timestamp part when searching all fields
   - give preference to symbolic font names like sans & monospace
   - allow comparing two commits using a mark
   - "gitk" honors log.showroot configuration.

 * Teams for localizing the messages from the Porcelain layer of
   commands are starting to form, thanks to Jiang Xin who volunteered
   to be the localization coordinator.  Translated messages for
   simplified Chinese, Swedish and Portuguese are available.

 * The configuration mechanism learned an "include" facility; an
   assignment to the include.path pseudo-variable causes the named
   file to be included in-place when Git looks up configuration
   variables.

 * A content filter (clean/smudge) used to be just a way to make the
   recorded contents "more useful", and allowed to fail; a filter can
   now optionally be marked as "required".

 * Options whose names begin with "--no-" (e.g. the "--no-verify"
   option of the "git commit" command) can be negated by omitting
   "no-" from its name, e.g. "git commit --verify".

 * "git am" learned to pass "-b" option to underlying "git mailinfo", so
   that a bracketed string other than "PATCH" at the beginning can be kept.

 * "git clone" learned "--single-branch" option to limit cloning to a
   single branch (surprise!); tags that do not point into the history
   of the branch are not fetched.

 * "git clone" learned to detach the HEAD in the resulting repository
   when the user specifies a tag with "--branch" (e.g., "--branch=v1.0").
   Clone also learned to print the usual "detached HEAD" advice in such
   a case, similar to "git checkout v1.0".

 * When showing a patch while ignoring whitespace changes, the context
   lines are taken from the postimage, in order to