Additional Git Version 1.7.8 Features and Improvements

not necessarily a request to unpack a bundle file; the file could be ".git" with "gitdir: <path>" in it. * "git for-each-ref" learned "%(contents:subject)", "%(contents:body)" and "%(contents:signature)". The last one is useful for signed tags. * "git grep" used to incorrectly pay attention to .gitignore files scattered in the directory it was working in even when "--no-index" option was used. It no longer does this. The "--exclude-standard" option needs to be given to explicitly activate the ignore mechanism. * "git grep" learned "--untracked" option, where given patterns are searched in untracked (but not ignored) files as well as tracked files in the working tree, so that matches in new but not yet added files do not get missed. * The recursive merge backend no longer looks for meaningless existing merges in submodules unless in the outermost merge. * "git log" and friends learned "--children" option. * "git ls-remote" learned to respond to "-h"(elp) requests. * "mediawiki" remote helper can interact with (surprise!) MediaWiki with "git fetch" & "git push". * "git merge" learned the "--edit" option to allow users to edit the merge commit log message. * "git rebase -i" can be told to use special purpose editor suitable only for its insn sheet via sequence.editor configuration variable. * "git send-email" learned to respond to "-h"(elp) requests. * "git send-email" allows the value given to sendemail.aliasfile to begin with "~/" to refer to the $HOME directory. * "git send-email" forces use of Authen::SASL::Perl to work around issues between Authen::SASL::Cyrus and AUTH PLAIN/LOGIN. * "git stash" learned "--include-untracked" option to stash away untracked/ignored cruft from the working tree. * "git submodule clone" does not leak an error message to the UI level unnecessarily anymore. * "git submodule update" learned to honor "none" as the value for submodule.<name>.update to specify that the named submodule should not be checked out by default. * When populating

This part of the release notes highlights further updates to Git, including new options for commands like git for-each-ref, git grep, git log, and git merge, as well as improvements to git send-email, git stash, and git submodule, to enhance the overall functionality and usability of the Git version control system.