bug#51497: 29.0.50; (vc-print-log) broken over TRAMP

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 07.11.2021 09:47, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > From: Dmitry Gutov <dgutov@yandex.ru>
> > Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2021 03:11:43 +0300
> >
> > Failing that, I think we'll need to change the "literal pathspecs"
> > implementation to yet another approach (adding --literl-pathspecs flag
> > instead of manipulating file names). It comes with the same general
> > drawbacks as the env var (which is used under the hood), but the
> > explicit approach of specifying it in every command would avoid the
> > problem of my original fix for that bug.
>
> Why wasn't --literal-pathspecs used in the first place? what are the
> downsides?  IME, using magic file names is always worse, because it
> can run afoul of various shells that consider some characters special.

It wasn't among the proposed solutions.

I went with the env var solution initially (because it required less 
code and brought fewer -- none -- Git version compatibility problems), 
but it didn't yield itself as easily to the per-action opt-in as the 
other proposal (currently installed).

But now that I think about it, it would be possible to do this without a 
new macro, just adding a new variable that default to nil, and set it to 
t in every backend method that needs it.