[PATCH 0/2] Minor document fixes

[PATCH 0/2] Minor document fixes

[Philip Oakley]

A couple of minor fixes seen while looking at the Git-for-Wondows
patch thicket and getting my head around the conflict resolutions

I did note that there was potential for the rerere-train to be integrated
with the main rerere code, and maybe learn from the range-diff, and the
rebasing merge todo lists, when repetition is occuring in development.
Maybe also 'show' options for the resolutions (-cc?). Possibly an
intersting student project, including its documenation.

Philip Oakley (2):
  rerere doc: quote `rerere.enabled`
  describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference

 Documentation/git-describe.txt | 2 +-
 Documentation/git-rerere.txt   | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

-- 
2.21.0.windows.1.80.gdc2ae9a382

[PATCH 1/2] rerere doc: quote `rerere.enabled`

[Philip Oakley]

Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
---
Noticed while attempting to train the Git-for-Windows rebasing-
merge series.
---
 Documentation/git-rerere.txt | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-rerere.txt b/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
index df310d2a58..95763d7581 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ on the initial manual merge, and applying previously recorded
 hand resolutions to their corresponding automerge results.
 
 [NOTE]
-You need to set the configuration variable rerere.enabled in order to
+You need to set the configuration variable `rerere.enabled` in order to
 enable this command.
 
 
-- 
2.21.0.windows.1.80.gdc2ae9a382

Re: [PATCH 1/2] rerere doc: quote `rerere.enabled`

[Junio C Hamano]

Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> writes:

> Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
> ---
> Noticed while attempting to train the Git-for-Windows rebasing-
> merge series.
> ---
>  Documentation/git-rerere.txt | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-rerere.txt b/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
> index df310d2a58..95763d7581 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-rerere.txt
> @@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ on the initial manual merge, and applying previously recorded
>  hand resolutions to their corresponding automerge results.
>  
>  [NOTE]
> -You need to set the configuration variable rerere.enabled in order to
> +You need to set the configuration variable `rerere.enabled` in order to
>  enable this command.

OK.  That sounds good.

Thanks.

[PATCH 2/2] describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference

[Philip Oakley]

While the minimum is 7-char, the unambiguous length can be longer.

Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
---
noticed while looking int the Git-for-Windows patch thicket -
was looking for the ~n^m style!
---
 Documentation/git-describe.txt | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
index ccdc5f83d6..a88f6ae2c6 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
@@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ at the end.
 
 The number of additional commits is the number
 of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
-The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
+The hash suffix is "-g" + unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit
 of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
 The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
 a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
-- 
2.21.0.windows.1.80.gdc2ae9a382

Re: [PATCH 2/2] describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference

[Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason]

On Sat, Apr 06 2019, Philip Oakley wrote:

> While the minimum is 7-char, the unambiguous length can be longer.
>
> Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
> ---
> noticed while looking int the Git-for-Windows patch thicket -
> was looking for the ~n^m style!
> ---
>  Documentation/git-describe.txt | 2 +-
>  1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
> index ccdc5f83d6..a88f6ae2c6 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
> @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ at the end.
>
>  The number of additional commits is the number
>  of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
> -The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
> +The hash suffix is "-g" + unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit
>  of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
>  The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
>  a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful

Both the old/new version are subtly wrong. Whether the new one is better
is another matter.

First, there's more places we mention the now-incorrect 7 characters, at
least these (one of which you're fixing). Found by grepping for ' 7 '
and '7.*abbr':

    Documentation/git-branch.txt-181---abbrev=<length>::
    Documentation/git-branch.txt-182-       Alter the sha1's minimum display length in the output listing.
    Documentation/git-branch.txt:183:       The default value is 7 and can be overridden by the `core.abbrev`
    Documentation/git-branch.txt-184-       config option.
    Documentation/git-describe.txt-65---abbrev=<n>::
    Documentation/git-describe.txt:66:      Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the
    Documentation/git-describe.txt-67-      abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits
    Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt-93-Object size identified by <object> is given in bytes, and right-justified
    Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt:94:with minimum width of 7 characters.  Object size is given only for blobs
    Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt-95-(file) entries; for other entries `-` character is used in place of size.
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-44-
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt:45:What are the 7 digits of hex that Git responded to the commit with?
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-46-
    [...]
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-52-name), and that the contents of a Git object will never change (since
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt:53:that would change the object's name as well). The 7 char hex strings
    Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-54-here are simply the abbreviation of such 40 character long strings.

It was never correct that we'd pick 7 characters, we'd *try* that before
e6c587c733 ("abbrev: auto size the default abbreviation", 2016-09-30)
but would pick a longer one if it was unambiguous.

Whereas "unambiguous abbreviation" isn't correct either, and arguably
less correct. At least 7 is what we *still* pick as a fallback in lieu
of the auto-sizing, but just "unambiguous abbreviation" implies that in
a repo with some 10 objects we might show just one character, or that
we'd post-e6c587c733 pick say 7 characters in a repository where it *is*
unambiguous but where we've auto-sized to 12.

I've been meaning to follow-up on
https://public-inbox.org/git/20190204161217.20047-1-avarab@gmail.com/
where I among other things wanted to just have these instances all say
"commits will be abbreviated as described in XYZ in linkgit:<something>"
and summarize what happens there.

I don't mind if this goes in, I mainly wrote this E-Mail as a brain dump
since it jolted my memory on the topic, and so that I could dig it up
later & see how I intended to follow-up on those #leftoverbits

Re: [PATCH 2/2] describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference

[Junio C Hamano]

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> I've been meaning to follow-up on
> https://public-inbox.org/git/20190204161217.20047-1-avarab@gmail.com/
> where I among other things wanted to just have these instances all say
> "commits will be abbreviated as described in XYZ in linkgit:<something>"
> and summarize what happens there.

Thanks for a pointer.  I do recall that I found that one very
promising.  I can see from
https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqq7eefv02i.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/
that I was mostly OK with the end-user facing documentation part,
and also from
https://public-inbox.org/git/xmqq36p3uxq2.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com/
I was OK with the idea of exposing the computation but found that
the exact command option it was done with was suboptimal; neither of
these was pointing out any incorrectable flaw).

> I don't mind if this goes in, I mainly wrote this E-Mail as a brain dump
> since it jolted my memory on the topic, and so that I could dig it up
> later & see how I intended to follow-up on those #leftoverbits

Re: [PATCH 2/2] describe doc: remove '7-char' abbreviation reference

[Philip Oakley]

Hi Ævar

On 07/04/2019 21:05, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 06 2019, Philip Oakley wrote:
>
>> While the minimum is 7-char, the unambiguous length can be longer.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org>
>> ---
>> noticed while looking int the Git-for-Windows patch thicket -
>> was looking for the ~n^m style!
>> ---
>>   Documentation/git-describe.txt | 2 +-
>>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>>
>> diff --git a/Documentation/git-describe.txt b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
>> index ccdc5f83d6..a88f6ae2c6 100644
>> --- a/Documentation/git-describe.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/git-describe.txt
>> @@ -139,7 +139,7 @@ at the end.
>>
>>   The number of additional commits is the number
>>   of commits which would be displayed by "git log v1.0.4..parent".
>> -The hash suffix is "-g" + 7-char abbreviation for the tip commit
>> +The hash suffix is "-g" + unambiguous abbreviation for the tip commit
>>   of parent (which was `2414721b194453f058079d897d13c4e377f92dc6`).
>>   The "g" prefix stands for "git" and is used to allow describing the version of
>>   a software depending on the SCM the software is managed with. This is useful
> Both the old/new version are subtly wrong. Whether the new one is better
> is another matter.
>
> First, there's more places we mention the now-incorrect 7 characters, at
> least these (one of which you're fixing). Found by grepping for ' 7 '
> and '7.*abbr':
>
>      Documentation/git-branch.txt-181---abbrev=<length>::
>      Documentation/git-branch.txt-182-       Alter the sha1's minimum display length in the output listing.
>      Documentation/git-branch.txt:183:       The default value is 7 and can be overridden by the `core.abbrev`
>      Documentation/git-branch.txt-184-       config option.
>      Documentation/git-describe.txt-65---abbrev=<n>::
>      Documentation/git-describe.txt:66:      Instead of using the default 7 hexadecimal digits as the
>      Documentation/git-describe.txt-67-      abbreviated object name, use <n> digits, or as many digits
>      Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt-93-Object size identified by <object> is given in bytes, and right-justified
>      Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt:94:with minimum width of 7 characters.  Object size is given only for blobs
>      Documentation/git-ls-tree.txt-95-(file) entries; for other entries `-` character is used in place of size.
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-44-
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt:45:What are the 7 digits of hex that Git responded to the commit with?
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-46-
>      [...]
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-52-name), and that the contents of a Git object will never change (since
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt:53:that would change the object's name as well). The 7 char hex strings
>      Documentation/gittutorial-2.txt-54-here are simply the abbreviation of such 40 character long strings.
>
> It was never correct that we'd pick 7 characters, we'd *try* that before
> e6c587c733 ("abbrev: auto size the default abbreviation", 2016-09-30)
> but would pick a longer one if it was unambiguous.
>
> Whereas "unambiguous abbreviation" isn't correct either, and arguably
> less correct. At least 7 is what we *still* pick as a fallback in lieu
> of the auto-sizing, but just "unambiguous abbreviation" implies that in
> a repo with some 10 objects we might show just one character, or that
> we'd post-e6c587c733 pick say 7 characters in a repository where it *is*
> unambiguous but where we've auto-sized to 12.
>
> I've been meaning to follow-up on
> https://public-inbox.org/git/20190204161217.20047-1-avarab@gmail.com/
> where I among other things wanted to just have these instances all say
> "commits will be abbreviated as described in XYZ in linkgit:<something>"
> and summarize what happens there.
>
> I don't mind if this goes in, I mainly wrote this E-Mail as a brain dump
> since it jolted my memory on the topic, and so that I could dig it up
> later & see how I intended to follow-up on those #leftoverbits
I had had a look at most of the other '7 ' references and decided that 
most of those I saw were about the minimum abbreviation settings, but it 
looks like I maybe missed a few - like the gittutorials.

  I was aware that I was being slightly economical with the truth, but 
was just looking for a way of implying 'variable length' and I punted on 
the long explanation as the particular reference was way down the 
document. If anyone has a suggestion for a better phrase I'd be happy 
And I could add it to the tutorials as well).

Philip
(added Junio, given his follow up email, though we still need a term for 
this.)