Git 1.8.1 Released, Brings Major Features

Junio C. Hamano had the pleasure of announcing on the last day of 2012 that Git, a distributed version control system, reached version 1.8.1 and it’s available for download.

Git 1.8.1 is actually the first major release of the 1.8 branch, which was officially announced back in October 2012. Therefore, this version introduces a large number of improvements, functions, updated documentation, as well as bug fixes.

Highlights of Git 1.8.1:

· Added command-line completion scripts for zsh and tcsh;
· Converted some plain text documentation in HTML format;
· The "git-prompt" scriptlet is now able to colorify part of the hints in the prompt string;
· Removed a workaround for a bug in less, as it was fixed in version 406;
· "git checkout” gained the ability to advise users how to sync branches by pulling or pushing;
· "git config --get" gained the ability to apply the "last one wins" rule, which is used by the internal configuration logic;
· Added a new configuration variable, called "diff.context”, which allows users to modify the default number of context lines in the patch output;
· "git format-patch" is now able to give notes for the commit, thanks to the "--notes=<ref>" option;
· "git log -p -S<string>" now checks the <string> after applying the textconv filter;
· "git replace -d <object>" now interprets <object> as an extended SHA-1;
· "git send-email" no longer prompts for the sender address when it is not necessary;
· "git submodule add" gained a "--name" option, which allows users to add a new submodule to the same path as the one where a different submodule was bound to in an existing revision;
· "git submodule sync" gained the "--recursive" option;
· "git symbolic-ref" gained the "-d $symref" option, which allows users to delete the named symbolic ref;
· Custom default values can be given to the "git diff --submodule" option, via the "diff.submodule" configuration variable.

For more details about this stable release of the Git version control system, please check the official raw changelog.

Download Git 1.8.1 right now from Softpedia.