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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com>
Cc: git@vger.kernel.org, larsxschneider@gmail.com, me@jnm2.com,
	philipoakley@iee.org, john@keeping.me.uk
Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/2] help: make option --help open man pages only for Git commands
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2016 12:51:35 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqy43t6ek8.fsf@gitster.mtv.corp.google.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20160818185719.4909-3-ralf.thielow@gmail.com> (Ralf Thielow's message of "Thu, 18 Aug 2016 20:57:19 +0200")

Ralf Thielow <ralf.thielow@gmail.com> writes:

> If option --help is passed to a Git command, we try to open
> the man page of that command.  However, we do it even for commands
> we don't know.  Make sure it is a Git command.

What the patch does is correct, I think, but the explanation may
invite a false alarm.  If you added a custom command git-who in your
$PATH, with an appropriate documentation for git-who(1), we would
still show its documentation, no?

The same comment applies to 1/2, too, in that the word "command"
will be interpreted differently by different people.  For example,
"git co --help" and "git help co" would work, with or without 1/2 in
place when you have "[alias] co = checkout", so we are calling "Git
subcommands that we ship, custom commands 'git-$foo' the users have
in their $PATH, and aliases the users create" collectively "command".

As long as the reader understands that definition, both the log
messages of 1/2 and 2/2 _and_ the updated description for "git help"
we have in 1/2 are all very clear.  I do not care too much about the
commit log message, but we may want to think about the documentation
a bit more.

Here is what 1/2 adds to "git help" documentation:

    +Note that `git --help ...` is almost identical to `git help ...` because
    +the former is internally converted into the latter with option --command-only
    +being added.

     To display the linkgit:git[1] man page, use `git help git`.

    @@ -43,6 +44,10 @@ OPTIONS
            Prints all the available commands on the standard output. This
            option overrides any given command or guide name.

    +-c::
    +--command-only::
    +	Display help information only for commands.
    +

First, I do not think a short form is unnecessary; the users are not
expected to use that form, once they started typing "git help...".
If we flip the polarity and call it --exclude-guides or something,
would it make it less ambiguous?

> This breaks "git <concept> --help" while "git help <concept>" still works.

I wouldn't call that a breakage; "git everyday --help" shouldn't
have worked in the first place.  It did something useful merely by
accident ;-).

> diff --git a/git.c b/git.c
> index 0f1937f..2cd2e06 100644
> --- a/git.c
> +++ b/git.c
> @@ -528,10 +528,23 @@ static void handle_builtin(int argc, const char **argv)
>  	strip_extension(argv);
>  	cmd = argv[0];
>  
> -	/* Turn "git cmd --help" into "git help cmd" */
> +	/* Turn "git cmd --help" into "git help --command-only cmd" */
>  	if (argc > 1 && !strcmp(argv[1], "--help")) {
> +		struct argv_array args;
> +		int i;
> +
>  		argv[1] = argv[0];
>  		argv[0] = cmd = "help";
> +
> +		argv_array_init(&args);
> +		for (i = 0; i < argc; i++) {
> +			argv_array_push(&args, argv[i]);
> +			if (!i)
> +				argv_array_push(&args, "--command-only");
> +		}
> +
> +		argc++;
> +		argv = argv_array_detach(&args);
>  	}
>  
>  	builtin = get_builtin(cmd);

The code does this after it:

    if (builtin)
                exit(run_builtin(...));

and returns.  If we didn't get builtin, we risk leaking args.argv
here, but we assume argv[0] = cmd = "help" is always a builtin,
which I think is a safe assumption, so the code is OK.  Static
checkers that are only half intelligent may yell at you for not
releasing the resources, though.  I wonder if it is worth doing

    static void handle_builtin(int argc, const char **argv)
    {
            struct argv_array args = ARGV_ARRAY_INIT;
            ...
            if (argc > 1 && !strcmp(argv[1], "--help")) {
                    ...
                    argv = args.argv;
            }
            builtin = get_builtin(cmd);
            if (builtin)
                    exit(run_builtin(...));
            argv_array_clear(&args);
    }   

to help unconfuse them.

By the way, I do not see these patches on gmane, public-inbox or
usual suspects.  Perhaps vger is having a bad day or something?


  reply	other threads:[~2016-08-19  0:50 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 46+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2016-08-12  2:00 `git stash --help` tries to pull up nonexistent file gitstack.html Joseph Musser
2016-08-12 15:48 ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-12 16:03   ` Lars Schneider
2016-08-12 16:15     ` Joseph Musser
2016-08-12 16:25       ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-12 18:14         ` Jacob Keller
2016-08-12 20:10         ` [PATCH] help: make option --help open man pages only for Git commands Ralf Thielow
2016-08-12 21:34           ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-12 22:53             ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-13  0:08               ` Philip Oakley
2016-08-13 15:31                 ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-15  5:36           ` [PATCH v2] " Ralf Thielow
2016-08-15 11:25             ` Philip Oakley
2016-08-15 17:57               ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-15 20:40                 ` Philip Oakley
2016-08-15 22:19                   ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-16 10:06                   ` John Keeping
2016-08-16 16:20             ` [PATCH v3] " Ralf Thielow
2016-08-16 16:33               ` John Keeping
2016-08-16 16:39                 ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-16 17:27               ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-16 17:57                 ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-16 19:06                   ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-18 18:57               ` [PATCH 0/2] " Ralf Thielow
2016-08-18 18:57                 ` [PATCH 1/2] help: introduce option --command-only Ralf Thielow
2016-08-18 18:57                   ` [PATCH 2/2] help: make option --help open man pages only for Git commands Ralf Thielow
2016-08-18 19:51                     ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2016-08-23 17:34                       ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-18 21:47                   ` [PATCH 1/2] help: introduce option --command-only Philip Oakley
2016-08-19  8:32                   ` Johannes Schindelin
2016-08-19 15:53                     ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-23 17:41                     ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-24  7:47                       ` Johannes Schindelin
2016-08-19  8:39                   ` Remi Galan Alfonso
2016-08-23 17:37                     ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 17:58                 ` [PATCH v2 0/3] help: make option --help open man pages only for Git commands Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 17:58                   ` [PATCH v2 1/3] Revert "display HTML in default browser using Windows' shell API" Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 17:58                   ` [PATCH v2 2/3] help: introduce option --exclude-guides Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 19:06                     ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-26 19:42                       ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-26 20:03                         ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 20:28                           ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-26 20:00                       ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 20:20                         ` Junio C Hamano
2016-08-26 20:39                           ` Ralf Thielow
2016-08-26 17:58                   ` [PATCH v2 3/3] help: make option --help open man pages only for Git commands Ralf Thielow

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