Re: [PATCH] Add --format that is a synonym to --pretty

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Feb 24, 2009, 04:50 UTC
Message-ID: <20090224045041.GA4615@coredump.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <20090224130626.6117@nanako3.lavabit.com>

On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 01:06:26PM +0900, Nanako Shiraishi wrote:

> Some people prefer to call the pretty-print styles "format", and get
> annoyed to see "git log --format=short" fail.  Introduce it as a synonym
> to --pretty so that both can be used interchangeably without breaking
> examples in existing web pages or ppeople's expectations.

Thinking about this in context of the proposal to support --oneline (et al), I think this part by itself gives confusing behavior. That is, --pretty=oneline can be shortened to --oneline, but --pretty=format:$x cannot be shortened to --format=$x.

But that is modified by what happens next:

> Having to say --format="format:%h %s" is redundant because none of the
> predefined pretty-print styles have per-cent sign in it, so this patch
> also makes it possible to say --pretty="%h %s" (and --format="%h %s").

This implies that --format=$x is equivalent to --pretty=format:$x, but the patch actually implements the equivalent of --pretty=tformat:$x.

So that raises two concerns:

  1. We have to pick one as the "most common" for this shorthand; are we
     sure tformat is it? (Personally, I think it is, but I think it is a
     subtle point which we should be sure of).

  2. This _almost_ fixes the point I raised above. That is, --format=$x
     would match its longer --pretty=format:$x counterpart. Except that
     --format does _tformat_, which I would have expected to get via
     --tformat under such a proposal.

-Peff