From: Stephan Beyer Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 00:03:37 GMT Subject: Re: About git pretty Message-ID: <20080823000336.GB14684@leksak.fem-net> In-Reply-To: <94a0d4530808221624m26034923pbc1f97cb4c4203d8@mail.gmail.com> Hi, Felipe Contreras wrote: > Hi, > > Please read aloud the following commands: > git log --pretty=short > git log --pretty=full > git log --pretty=format:%s > > It is just me or 'pretty full' doesn't exactly convey the meaning of > the action to execute? But "pretty short" and "pretty format" is. :) > How about: > git log --format=short > git log --format=full > git log --format=custom:%s > > If you like the idea I can work on a patch. Because --pretty= is an option taken by many git commands including git plumbing (e.g. rev-list), many scripts will rely on "--pretty" and they all would have to be changed. And --pretty exists since Jan 2005 (see 9d97aa64). Also, --format is an option available to git-archive and git-for-each-ref with a different intention for each. --pretty exists for several git commands with the same intention for all (I think) -- pretty-printing commit objects. And, btw, I also do not think that your idea does really solve the "problem" that it always will make sense when you read it aloud. Thus it seems that --format has no benefit over --pretty at all. :-) Ahh, another thought: If a new git user is looking for an option to _format_ git-log output, she will surely search the git-log manual page for the word "format", finding 1. --raw 2. --shortstat 3. --abbrev 4. --full-index 5. --pretty STRIKE! This makes me wonder if it could make sense to move --pretty up in the git-log manual page, but I do not think renaming it is worth the trouble. Regards, Stephan -- Stephan Beyer , PGP 0x6EDDD207FCC5040F