clarification of `rev-list --no-walk ^<rev>`?

["Philip Oakley" <philipoakley@iee.org>]

A question came up on the Git user list regarding cherry-pick that got me
reading the manual (again), in this case regarding --no-walk ranges.

Essentially my question is: If --no-walk is given to rev-list (e.g. via
charry-pick), and the user includes a caret prefixed rev, when does that
range definition take effect on the command line, especially in light of
the --do-walk option?

In rev-list(1) there are only 8 references to  'range', with only
the --no-walk option saying "This has no effect if a range is specified."
but leaving open the decision as to what does (and does not) comprises the
specification of a range on the cli.

The two and three dot notations are fairly obvious ranges from
gitrevisions(7) as they are complete strings, while the caret prefix is an 
implied range (it needs additional parameters to complete the range, and 
there-in lies the issue).

It can be read that

$ git cherry-pick maint next

would pick two single commits, while

$ git cherry-pick maint next ^master

could implicitly be read as

$ git cherry-pick maint next --do-walk ^master

because the ^ caret starts the range that cancels the --no-walk.

Clearly that's not what is intended, which is

$ git cherry-pick --do-walk maint next ^master

but it is open to interpretation as to where in the command line the caret
range prefix's --do-walk (to countermand the --no-walk) should applied.

If the user did want just the single commit at the tip of maint, and then
the range master..next, what would be their command line, and also, how
would the man page warn against false expectations?

--

Philip