TIG_LS_REMOTE not behaving as documented

[brtwrst]

TLDR:
TIG_LS_REMOTE default got changed from git ls-remote to git show-ref in 3448d1c.
Now using git ls-remote in the TIG_LS_REMOTE environment variable breaks TIG because git ls-remote uses tabs and git show-ref uses spaces to separate output and TIG expects spaces.
/TLDR

Please see Chapter 3.2 at http://jonas.nitro.dk/tig/manual.html#env-variables
or Environment Variable Section at https://jonas.github.io/tig/doc/tig.1.html

The Manual speaks of an environment variable TIG_LS_REMOTE that can be used to "limit what branches are shown".

I was playing around with this and immediately noticed some strange behaviour:

When setting the supposed default:

export TIG_LS_REMOTE="git ls-remote ."

TIG breaks and shows no branches at all.

I checked the source code and found this in refdb.c line 314:

const char *ls_remote_argv[SIZEOF_ARG] = {
		"git", "show-ref", "--head", "--dereference", NULL
	};

which apparently got changed in 3448d1c
so when i tried:

export TIG_LS_REMOTE="git show-ref --head --dereference"

everything went back to normal.

when checking the outputs of git show-ref vs git ls-remote the only difference i could find was that show-ref uses a SPACE to separate the output and ls-remote uses a TAB.

here is git ls-remote .

dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891        HEAD
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891        refs/heads/master
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891        refs/heads/test
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891        refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891        refs/remotes/origin/master

and here is git show-ref --head --dereference

dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891 HEAD
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891 refs/heads/master
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891 refs/heads/test
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891 refs/remotes/origin/HEAD
dce1882dc0e27685ee82cf0a80c0dea286e87891 refs/remotes/origin/master

and sure enough i found this in refdb.c line 345

code = io_run_load(ls_remote_argv, " ", read_ref, &opt);

so it seems the separator TIG expects is hard coded as a space.
I tried replacing the tabs with spaces using TIG_LS_REMOTE=git ls-remote . | tr '\t' ' ' but that does not work.

[jonas]

Thanks for the detailed report. I have been considering removing TIG_LS_REMOTE or migrating it to an option in ~/.tigrc so I am curious if you could share your use case?

Regarding the issue, would you mind trying to change the line you mentioned to

code = io_run_load(ls_remote_argv, " \t", read_ref, &opt);

So tabs are also a valid separator? If it works please make a pull request else if you prefer I can make one.

[brtwrst]

Well i just wanted to decrease visual clutter by (for example) not showing origin/HEAD.
Also i have some remotes that i just use for backup purposes and don't want to see all the time.
I'm not a developer by trade and i've been customizing the settings of tig just for the sake of it.
(Like figuring out how to make my sublimetext work with editor-line-number - sublimetext wants file:line not +line file)
Did i mention i use windows :D
I will try to change the line and compile it on my raspberry pi and get back to you after i figured out how to make a pull request.

BTW thanks for a great program.

[brtwrst]

Alright that was fun.
Changing the line does in fact fix this issue. And i did figure out how pull requests work.
Now i just have to figure out how to actually hide the refs i want to hide.

[jonas]

Decreasing visual clutter was one of the reasons for introducing the feature.

Fixed in 20f1edf

[brtwrst]

Alright so its a valid use case after all.
Now i'm stuck on the fact that it behaves basically like a whitelist.
For my case here it would be a lot better if it would behave like a blacklist but i can see that - even though i have very little understanding of the source code - this would be a lot more than a one line change. If you ever rewrite the feature to use the .tigrc you might want to look into that possibility.

Thanks again