git rev-list --max-count=1 --reverse ':/[git-p4:.*change = 68846]'
While running git-p4, I received this error message right at the end (rats!):
Importing revision 70169 (100%)fatal: ambiguous argument ':/\[git-p4:.*change = 68846\]': unknown revision or path not in the working tree.
Use '--' to separate paths from revisions
Command failed: ['git', 'rev-list', '--max-count=1', '--reverse', ':/\\[git-p4:.*change = 68846\\]']
The last argument to rev-list should be a commit. I've not seen commit specified quite like this before.
What am I looking at here? What is git-p4 trying to do?
Answering my own question:
from gitrevisions
:/, e.g. :/fix nasty bug
A colon, followed by a slash, followed by a text, names a commit whose commit message matches the specified regular expression. This name returns the youngest matching commit which is reachable from any ref. If the commit message starts with a ! you have to repeat that; the special sequence :/!, followed by something else than !, is reserved for now. The regular expression can match any part of the commit message. To match messages starting with a string, one can use e.g. :/^foo.
Although my translation is a bit off. It needs to escape the [].
git rev-list --max-count=1 --reverse ':/\[git-p4:.*change = 68846\]'