'gap' is a program

[ChrisJefferson]

Since installing oh-my-zsh, I kept finding that running 'gap' would start some weird git related thing.

I have now discovered this is a git alias added by the git package. Perhaps if there is a program called 'gap', that should be used instead of the alias? Or choose a different one?

[apjanke]

Sounds like you're referring to gap from GAP (https://github.com/gap-system/gap)?

@stibbons and @ncanceill are the maintainers of the git plugin. Can you folks comment?

@ChrisJefferson, as a workaround, you can unalias gap after sourcing $ZSH/oh-my-zsh.sh in your ~/.zshrc.

[ChrisJefferson]

Yes, it is that gap. I didn't know about unalias (probably should have done), I can at least use that for now to get my machine working again. Don't know if there will always be an argument over these short names.

[ncanceill]

Hi @ChrisJefferson,

I had never heard of the GAP system, and I did not know about a GNU program called gap. This is obviously a conflict, and there are two choices when it comes to this:

• changing the gap alias to something else
• not doing anything

---

We do not like modifying aliases, because it may break backwards-compatibility for existing users of the plugin. This means we need a really good reason for doing so: proof that this conflict affects many users.

This is where you come in. Since you want this problem to be solved, your task is now to find other people like you: people using both GAP and the Git plugin. When you find them, get them to +1 this issue, and we will consider changing the gap alias to something else.

If you choose this option, please keep this issue open until you find enough of them or give up.

---

In case you do not complete the above task, the alias will definitely not be modified. This would leave you with a few options:

• use unalias in your ~/.zshrc as suggested above
• use another alias for your gap command, for instance:

alias the_real_gap="/path/to/the/real/gap"

• maintain your own fork of OMZ and edit $ZSH/plugins/git/git.plugin.zsh to your needs

If you choose any of these options, please close this issue.

---

Thank you @apjanke for the ping. Next time @ChrisJefferson please notify the maintainers of the affected plugins.

[ChrisJefferson]

I'll just stop using the git plugin.

[ncanceill]

OK, this was not in the options I listed, but suit yourself.

Sorry but for the sake of compatibility we cannot easily change plugins aliases. Any other suggestion is welcome.

[gsemet]

gap is (fortunately) not defined in git2 plugin (#2494)

Collision is indeed inevitable, and I think it should be better to rename conflicting git aliases.

Maybe a good solution would be to split the plugin into several one, so anyone can enable only the one that he wants (git-gst.plugin.zsh for git status aliases, git-co.plugin.zsh for git commit aliases, ...)

[ChrisJefferson]

@ncanceill : I'm not saying there is an easy fix for you, but I don't really fancy either e-mailing the gap mailing list to see if anyone else uses oh-my-zsh's git plugin (I imagine like me, they won't, as it breaks gap), and I only became a user of oh-my-zsh 2 days ago, beginning to keep a separate version sounds painful!

One thing which might be worth considering (I don't know if it is) would be to produce a more useful error message and fix. Perhaps oh-my-zsh could print out aliases which conflict with programs (although I suppose sometimes this is on purpose, as it is replacing them), and give advice on how to fix the problem. At first I assumed the problem was something like auto-correction.

[ncanceill]

Thank you for your input, it only helps us make OMZ better.

I like your idea of checking for conflicts. This could be done by defining a custom safe_alias function, based on alias. By checking the return value of the which command, we can detect if an alias is overriding an existing command, and print a warning.

Would anyone be willing to work on that?

[gsemet]

Hard to do, because it depends whether gap or any other software is installed on your system...

[ChrisJefferson]

How about just see if 'which gap' returns anything?

[gsemet]

it returns none on my system. But on your it will return something. The "which" test is not good enough

[ChrisJefferson]

I'm confused now about what we are talking about :)

A safe_alias function would (I hope) find that assigning gap on your computer was fine, and on my machine would produce a warning, hopefully giving me some useful advice on how to either enable the alias without warning, or disable it.

Of course, finding what commands are valid on anyone's computer anywhere is probably an unreasonable goal.

[blueyed]

As @ChrisJefferson suggested, you could use something like:

if [[ -z $commands[gap] ]]; then
    alias gap="git add -p"
fi

[blueyed]

@ncanceill
There's no need for a safe_alias wrapper I think.
Do you think this can make it into the fixed git plugin?

[blueyed]

OTOH a safe_alias wrapper could then be used instead of alias everywhere of course, so it's worth adding to the framework probably.

See #3990 (comment).

[ncanceill]

Yes, I am definitely in favor of a safe aliasing system, to use everywhere throughout OMZ.

Will work on it as soon as the git plugin crisis is solved.

[unphased]

If I'm understanding things correctly:

1. gap got taken out for gapa because OP complained that gap is some tool
2. when lib: add safe_alias function #4585 is completed, OP's concern can be dealt with while retaining the gap alias
3. with the completion of lib: add safe_alias function #4585 gapa will go away again, hopefully...

Meanwhile I manually add gap as a zsh alias in my own zsh config which rides on top of omz.

[ncanceill]

@unphased

Could not have put it better myself. Although we may go with the Micro$oft approach and keep gapa around too... retro-compatibility yay.