[PATCH] apply: clarify "-p" documentation

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Apr 27, 2018 at 12:40:05PM -0500, kelly elton wrote:

> >  -p<n>
> > Remove <n> leading slashes from traditional diff paths. The default is 1.
> 
> This suggests to me the following outcomes:
> 1) home/user/repos/myrepo with -p1 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 2) home/user/repos/myrepo with -p2 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 3) /home/user/repos/myrepo with -p1 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 4) /home/user/repos/myrepo with -p2 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 5) //home/user/repos/myrepo with -p1 becomes /home/user/repos/myrepo
> 6) //home/user/repos/myrepo with -p2 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 
> `Remove <n> leading slashes`...That's not really what's happening.
> 
> What seems to actually happen is that it is removing directories from the path:
> 1) home/user/repos/myrepo with -p1 becomes home/user/repos/myrepo
> 2) home/user/repos/myrepo with -p2 becomes user/repos/myrepo
> 
> This argument seems to be removing folders from the path, not slashes.

Yes. I agree the current documentation is quite misleading.

How about this?

-- >8 --
Subject: [PATCH] apply: clarify "-p" documentation

We're not really removing slashes, but slash-separated path
components. Let's make that more clear.

Reported-by: kelly elton <its.the.doc@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
---
 Documentation/git-apply.txt | 6 ++++--
 1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-apply.txt b/Documentation/git-apply.txt
index 4ebc3d3271..c993fbf714 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-apply.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-apply.txt
@@ -113,8 +113,10 @@ explained for the configuration variable `core.quotePath` (see
 linkgit:git-config[1]).
 
 -p<n>::
-	Remove <n> leading slashes from traditional diff paths. The
-	default is 1.
+	Remove <n> leading path components (separated by slashes) from
+	traditional diff paths. E.g., with `-p2`, a patch against
+	`a/dir/file` will be applied directly to `file`. The default is
+	1.
 
 -C<n>::
 	Ensure at least <n> lines of surrounding context match before
-- 
2.17.0.984.g9b00a423a4