Re: [PATCH v3 6/7] Remove unused and bad gettext block from git-am

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 24, 2012, 18:27 UTC
Message-ID: <20120724182700.GI2939@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <dc805486adc18bf70cea73f9c6363bb3c4cf6c2b.1343112786.git.worldhello.net@gmail.com>

Hi,

Jiang Xin wrote:

> Gettext message should not start with '-' nor '--'. Since the '-d' and
> '--dotest' options do not exist in OPTIONS_SPEC variable, it's safe to
> remove the block.

The above justification is not a sufficient reason to stop giving helpful advice when someone uses an option that was historically supported:

Show 9 quoted lines

> --- a/git-am.sh
> +++ b/git-am.sh
> @@ -413,9 +413,6 @@ it will be removed. Please do not use it anymore.")
>  		abort=t ;;
>  	--rebasing)
>  		rebasing=t threeway=t ;;
> -	-d|--dotest)
> -		die "$(gettext "-d option is no longer supported.  Do not use.")"
> -		;;

Luckily the support was removed 4 years ago and I don't think anyone is going to run into this, so a different justification could apply.

	Support for the git am -d/--dotest option was removed four years ago
	(see e72c7406, "am: remove support for -d .dotest", 2008-03-04) and
	presumably no one is trying to use it any more.  Simplify the
	code and free the short-and-sweet "-d" option for other uses by
	no longer parsing it.

	The motivation: xgettext copes poorly with messages starting
	with '-'.  Rather than fixing this ancient message, let's take
	this as a reminder to remove it.

See http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/75896 for context. Though also see http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.security.selinux/1424/focus=1430

Hope that helps, Jonathan