From: Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:53:23 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] git-rebase.sh: Update USAGE string (No. 1)
Message-ID: <200802041353.25592.jnareb@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20080204115741.GA23834@glandium.org>

On Mon, 4 Feb 2008, Mike Hommey wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 04, 2008 at 11:15:20AM +0100, Jakub Narebski <jnareb@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Junio C Hamano wrote:

>>> Unfortunately, the majority of, if not all of, our existing
>>> documents use () instead for that purpose.
>>>
>>> So pros-and-cons are that [...] (2) our use of (), as we
>>> consistently use them, does not hurt readability (neutral); and

The above was re-added by me.

>> Actually we are not entirely consistent here.  git-init(1) has 
>>   --shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]
>> in the option description, git-rev-list(1) has
>>   [ --date={local|relative|default|iso|rfc|short} ]
> 
> What is inconsistent here ? The first tells you you can use --shared without
> an argument. And it's [--shared[=<permissions>]] in the synopsis, so you
> may omit --shared, or use in alone, or specify permissions. The second tells
> you can't use --date without an additional argument.

You have cut a bit too much when quoting. The inconsistency is between
git-branch(1) using () to delimit mutually exclusive options:

   git-branch (-m | -M) [<oldbranch>] <newbranch>

and git-init(1) (and git-rev-list(1)) using {} for that:

   --shared[={false|true|umask|group|all|world|everybody}]

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland