Re: [PATCH 3/5] doc/pretty-formats: describe index/time formats for %gd

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 12:48:34PM -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:

> On Mon, Jul 11, 2016 at 01:05:13AM -0400, Jeff King wrote:
> > The "reflog selector" format changes based on a series of
> > heuristics, and that applies equally to both stock "log -g"
> > output, as well as "--format=%gd". The documentation for
> > "%gd" doesn't cover this. Let's mention the multiple formats
> > and refer the user back to the "-g" section for the complete
> > rules.
> 
> Is it worth mentioning that the shortening only happens if the user
> specifies a selector with '/' in it in the first place?  I was
> confused when I was first playing with these selectors because %gd and
> %gD are identical if you run
> 
> 	git reflog --format=%gd -3 master
> 	git reflog --format=%gD -3 master
> 
> and are only different if you run:
> 
> 	git reflog --format=%gd -3 refs/heads/master
> 	git reflog --format=%gD -3 refs/heads/master

Yeah, I noticed that "shortened" is not really defined when I was
writing this.

Maybe this on top of the other documentation patches?

-- >8 --
Subject: [PATCH] doc/pretty-formats: explain shortening of %gd

The actual shortening rules aren't that interesting and
probably not worth getting into (I gloss over them here as
"shortened for human readability"). But the fact that %gD
shows whatever you gave on the command line is subtle and
worth mentioning. Since most people will feed a shortened
refname in the first place, it otherwise makes it hard to
understand the difference between the two.

Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/pretty-formats.txt | 9 ++++++---
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/pretty-formats.txt b/Documentation/pretty-formats.txt
index 36a300a..b95d67e 100644
--- a/Documentation/pretty-formats.txt
+++ b/Documentation/pretty-formats.txt
@@ -149,9 +149,12 @@ endif::git-rev-list[]
 - '%GK': show the key used to sign a signed commit
 - '%gD': reflog selector, e.g., `refs/stash@{1}` or
   `refs/stash@{2 minutes ago`}; the format follows the rules described
-  for the `-g` option
-- '%gd': shortened reflog selector, e.g., `stash@{1}` or
-  `stash@{2 minutes ago}`
+  for the `-g` option. The portion before the `@` is the refname as
+  given on the command line (so `git log -g refs/heads/master` would
+  yield `refs/heads/master@{0}`).
+- '%gd': shortened reflog selector; same as `%gD`, but the refname
+  portion is shortened for human readability (so `refs/heads/master`
+  becomes just `master`).
 - '%gn': reflog identity name
 - '%gN': reflog identity name (respecting .mailmap, see
   linkgit:git-shortlog[1] or linkgit:git-blame[1])
-- 
2.9.0.406.g77f030d