[PATCH v4 6/6] ls-remote doc: document the output format

From: Sean Allred via GitGitGadget <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
Date: May 19, 2023, 04:17 UTC
Message-ID: <115dba15ce03bb2aadac43810738bd762d837b41.1684469874.git.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <pull.1471.v4.git.git.1684469874.gitgitgadget@gmail.com>

From: Sean Allred <allred.sean@gmail.com>

While well-established, the output format of ls-remote was not actually documented. This patch adds an OUTPUT section to the documentation following the format of git-show-ref.txt (which has similar semantics).

Add a basic example immediately after this to solidify the 'normal' output format.

Signed-off-by: Sean Allred <allred.sean@gmail.com>
---
 Documentation/git-ls-remote.txt | 26 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 26 insertions(+)

diff --git a/Documentation/git-ls-remote.txt b/Documentation/git-ls-remote.txt
index c0b2facef48..1c4f696ab57 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-ls-remote.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-ls-remote.txt
@@ -96,9 +96,35 @@ OPTIONS
 	separator (so `bar` matches `refs/heads/bar` but not
 	`refs/heads/foobar`).
 
+OUTPUT
+------
+
+The output is in the format:
+
+------------
+<oid> TAB <ref> LF
+------------
+
+When showing an annotated tag, unless `--refs` is given, two such
+lines are shown: one with the refname for the tag itself as `<ref>`,
+and another with `<ref>` followed by `^{}`. The `<oid>` on the latter
+line shows the name of the object the tag points at.
+
 EXAMPLES
 --------
 
+* List all references (including symbolics and pseudorefs), peeling
+  tags:
++
+----
+$ git ls-remote
+27d43aaaf50ef0ae014b88bba294f93658016a2e	HEAD
+950264636c68591989456e3ba0a5442f93152c1a	refs/heads/main
+d9ab777d41f92a8c1684c91cfb02053d7dd1046b	refs/heads/next
+d4ca2e3147b409459955613c152220f4db848ee1	refs/tags/v2.40.0
+73876f4861cd3d187a4682290ab75c9dccadbc56	refs/tags/v2.40.0^{}
+----
+
 * List all references matching given patterns:
 +
 ----

-- 
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