From: "Junio C Hamano" <gits...@pobox.com>
Sent: Friday, August 17, 2012 7:19 AM
"Philip Oakley" <philipoak...@iee.org> writes:

From: "Junio C Hamano" <gits...@pobox.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2012 9:23 PM
"Philip Oakley" <philipoak...@iee.org> writes:

I wasn't aware of the "abbreviated options" capability. Is meant to
be in the man pages as I couldn't find it, or is it described
differently?

$ git help gitcli

is the closest that comes to mind.

If it is not reachable from "git help git", we may want to sprinkle
some more linkgit:gitfoo[$n] around the documentation sources.  I
didn't check.


I eventually found a reference in the parse-options API to the fact that
'Long options may be abbreviated, as long as the abbreviation is
unambiguous.'

It may be worth bringing some of those parse-options API basics bullets'
forward into the gitcli page, if appropriate.

OK, how about doing this?  Sort of killing two birds with one stone.

-- >8 --
Subject: [PATCH] gitcli: describe abbreviation of long options

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gits...@pobox.com>
---
Documentation/gitcli.txt | 8 ++++++++
1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/gitcli.txt b/Documentation/gitcli.txt
index ea17f7a..3e72a5d 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitcli.txt
+++ b/Documentation/gitcli.txt
@@ -62,6 +62,14 @@ scripting git:
`git log -1 HEAD` but write `git log -1 HEAD --`; the former will not work
   if you happen to have a file called `HEAD` in the work tree.

+ * many commands allow a long option "--option" to be abbreviated
+   only to their unique prefix (e.g. if there is no other option
+   whose name begins with "opt", you may be able to spell "--opt" to
+   invoke the "--option" flag), but you should fully spell them out
+   when writing your scripts; later versions of Git may introduce a
+   new option whose name shares the same prefix, e.g. "--optimize",
+   to make a short prefix that used to be unique no longer unique.
+

ENHANCED OPTION PARSER
----------------------
--
1.7.12.rc3.2.gbd120e3

Acked-by: Philip Oakley philipoak...@iee.org

I'd also suggest a patch to the 'git' page to bring out the command line interface man page, including an emphasis on each of the other information pages, along the lines of (probably managled/see attached):

-- >8 --
From 655c6e968fc4bb497e7ade90f2d879aadec795d9 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Philip Oakley <philipoak...@iee.org>
Date: Fri, 17 Aug 2012 17:53:48 +0100
Subject: Include 'see gitcli' link, and separate the other links

Provide a link to the git command line interface information,
and separate for readability, the differing Tutorial, User-manual,
and CVS instruction links.

Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoak...@iee.org>
---
Documentation/git.txt |   12 +++++++-----
1 files changed, 7 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt
index ca85d1d..75b35ce 100644
--- a/Documentation/git.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git.txt
@@ -22,11 +22,13 @@ unusually rich command set that provides both high-level operations
and full access to internals.

See linkgit:gittutorial[7] to get started, then see
-link:everyday.html[Everyday Git] for a useful minimum set of commands, and
-"man git-commandname" for documentation of each command.  CVS users may
-also want to read linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7].  See
-the link:user-manual.html[Git User's Manual] for a more in-depth
-introduction.
+link:everyday.html[Everyday Git] for a useful minimum set of commands.
+Use "man git-commandname" for documentation of each command, or "git help".
+
+CVS users may also want to read linkgit:gitcvs-migration[7].
+
+See the link:user-manual.html[Git User's Manual] for a more in-depth
+introduction, and linkgit:gitcli[7] for details of git's command line interface.

The '<command>' is either a name of a Git command (see below) or an alias
as defined in the configuration file (see linkgit:git-config[1]).
--
1.7.8.msysgit.0



Attachment: 0001-Include-see-gitcli-link-and-separate-the-other-links.patch
Description: Binary data

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