From: Kevin Daudt <me@ikke.info>
To: "Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@crashcourse.ca>
Cc: Git Mailing list <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: "man git-checkout", man page is inconsistent between SYNOPSIS and details
Date: Sat, 30 Sep 2017 16:32:58 +0200
Message-ID: <20170930143258.GA20886@alpha.vpn.ikke.info> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <alpine.LFD.2.21.1709300523190.27819@localhost.localdomain>
On Sat, Sep 30, 2017 at 05:27:22AM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
>
> just noticed that in "man git-checkout", the SYNOPSIS contains the
> line:
>
> git checkout [-p|--patch] [<tree-ish>] [--] [<paths>...]
>
> implying that <paths> is optional, but further down in the
> DESCRIPTION, one reads:
>
> git checkout [-p|--patch] [<tree-ish>] [--] <pathspec>...
>
> suggesting that <pathspec> is required.
>
Hello Robert, thank you for this report.
Git checkout has 2 major modes of operating:
1. Checking out branches (and then update your working tree to match that
commit.
2. Checking out 1 or more files from a commit.
The first four lines of the synopsis match mode nr. 1. The next two
belong to mode nr. 2.
The pathspec in the synopsis line you are quoting is required, because
that's how you tell git you want mode nr 2. That's why it's not
mentioned between []. The last section under description explains that
mode.
Do you feel this distinction needs to be made more clear?
Kevin.
next prev parent reply index
Thread overview: 11+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2017-09-30 9:27 Robert P. J. Day
2017-09-30 14:32 ` Kevin Daudt [this message]
2017-09-30 15:01 ` Robert P. J. Day
2017-09-30 22:04 ` Robert P. J. Day
2017-10-01 3:49 ` Junio C Hamano
2017-10-01 10:05 ` Robert P. J. Day
2017-10-02 0:29 ` Junio C Hamano
2017-10-11 2:39 ` [PATCH] checkout doc: clarify command line args for "checkout paths" mode Junio C Hamano
2017-10-11 3:22 ` Jonathan Nieder
2017-10-11 5:02 ` Junio C Hamano
2017-10-11 5:16 ` Jonathan Nieder
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