Noticed that the blob conversion code has become quite messy as we acquired more and more tweaks enabled via the attributes mechanism. Sent out a 4-patch series to clean it up, although it turns out that it is unnecessary to introduce a new attribute to control the conversion, which was the original reason I was looking at the conversion code to begin with.
Also updated the magic pathspec series a bit. The basic feature is there as far as it can be implemented without converting "array of strings" interface into the proper "struct pathspec" interface, and the rough edges are only around the error reporting codepath, so in that sense it is the best we could do for now. Sent out a 9-patch series as the result.
Reviewed and commented on 12 topics.
Queued 35 patches from 8 people.
Merged 1 topic to 'next' branch for public testing.