GIT v1.5.5 Release Notes
========================

Updates since v1.5.4
--------------------

(subsystems)

 * Comes with git-gui 0.10.1

(portability)

 * We shouldn't ask for BSD group ownership semantics by setting g+s bit
   on directories on older BSD systems that refuses chmod() by non root
   users.  BSD semantics is the default there anyway.

 * Bunch of portability improvement patches coming from an effort to port
   to Solaris has been applied.

(performance)

 * On platforms with suboptimal qsort(3) implementation, there
   is an option to use more reasonable substitute we ship with
   our software.

 * New configuration variable "pack.packsizelimit" can be used
   in place of command line option --max-pack-size.

 * "git fetch" over the native git protocol used to make a
   connection to find out the set of current remote refs and
   another to actually download the pack data.  We now use only
   one connection for these tasks.

 * "git commit" does not run lstat(2) more than necessary
   anymore.

(usability, bells and whistles)

 * Bash completion script (in contrib) are aware of more commands and
   options.

 * You can be warned when core.autocrlf conversion is applied in
   such a way that results in an irreversible conversion.

 * A catch-all "color.ui" configuration variable can be used to
   enable coloring of all color-capable commands, instead of
   individual ones such as "color.status" and "color.branch".

 * The commands refused to take absolute pathnames where they
   require pathnames relative to the work tree or the current
   subdirectory.  They now can take absolute pathnames in such a
   case as long as the pathnames do not refer outside of the
   work tree.  E.g. "git add $(pwd)/foo" now works.

 * Error messages used to be sent to stderr, only to get hidden,
   when $PAGER was in use.  They now are sent to stdout along
   with the command output to be shown in the $PAGER.

 * A pattern "foo/" in .gitignore file now matches a directory
   "foo".  Pattern "foo" also matches as before.

 * bash completion's prompt helper function can talk about
   operation in-progress (e.g. merge, rebase, etc.).

 * Configuration variables "url.<usethis>.insteadof = <otherurl>" can be
   used to tell "git-fetch" and "git-push" to use different URL than what
   is given from the command line.

 * "git add -i" behaves better even before you make an initial commit.

 * "git am" refused to run from a subdirectory without a good reason.

 * After "git apply --whitespace=fix" fixes whitespace errors in a patch,
   a line before the fix can appear as a context or preimage line in a
   later patch, causing the patch not to apply.  The command now knows to
   see through whitespace fixes done to context lines to successfully
   apply such a patch series.

 * "git branch" (and "git checkout -b") to branch from a local branch can
   optionally set "branch.<name>.merge" to mark the new branch to build on
   the other local branch, when "branch.autosetupmerge" is set to
   "always", or when passing the command line option "--track" (this option
   was ignored when branching from local branches).  By default, this does
   not happen when branching from a local branch.

 * "git checkout" to switch to a branch that has "branch.<name>.merge" set
   (i.e. marked to build on another branch) reports how much the branch
   and the other branch diverged.

 * When "git checkout" has to update a lot of paths, it used to be silent
   for 4 seconds before it showed any progress report.  It is now a bit
   more impatient and starts showing progress report early.

 * "git commit" learned a new hook "prepare-commit-msg" that can
   inspect what is going to be committed and prepare the commit
   log message template to be edited.

 * "git cvsimport"