Re: [PATCH 12/12] Add git-check-ignore sub-command

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Adam Spiers <git@adamspiers.org> writes:

> On Mon, Oct 15, 2012 at 3:31 PM, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:
>> Nguyễn Thái Ngọc Duy  <pclouds@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> +For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file via
>>> +`--stdin`, this command will list the first exclude pattern found (if
>>> +any) which explicitly excludes or includes that pathname.  Note that
>>> +within any given exclude file, later patterns take precedence over
>>> +earlier ones, so any matching pattern which this command outputs may
>>> +not be the one you would immediately expect.
>>
>> "The first exclude pattern" is very misleading, isn't it?
>
> I don't think so, because of the second sentence.
>
>> For example, with these in $GIT_DIR/info/exclude, I would get:
>>
>>         $ cat -n .git/info/exclude
>>           1 *~
>>           2 Makefile~
>>         $ git check-ignore -v Makefile~
>>         .git/info/exclude:2:Makefile~   Makefile~
>>
>> which is the correct result (the last one in a single source decides
>> the fate of the path), but it hardly is "first one found" and the
>> matching pattern in the output would not be something unexpected for
>> the users, either.
>>
>> The reason it is "the first one found" is because the implementation
>> arranges the loop in such a way that it can stop early when it finds
>> a match---it simply checks matches from the end of the source.
>>
>> But that is not visible to end-users,
>
> Correct; that's precisely why I wrote the second sentence which
> explicitly explains this.
>
>> and they will find the above description just wrong, no?
>
> It's not wrong AFAICS, but suggestions for rewording this more clearly
> are of course welcome.  Maybe s/immediately/intuitively/ ?

I think this is sufficient:

	For each pathname given via the command-line or from a file
	via `--stdin`, show the pattern from .gitignore (or other
	input files to the exclude mechanism) that decides if the
	pathname is excluded.

and without "Note that" at all.