Re: [PATCH] git-check-ref-format: fix typo in man page

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Feb 19, 2017, 02:27 UTC
Message-ID: <20170219022756.pwxhjluxizuedf46@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <2116CBFFB78A482D8FA176BC680B3B9C@PhilipOakley>

On Sun, Feb 19, 2017 at 12:20:33AM -0000, Philip Oakley wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> >  Normalize 'refname' by removing any leading slash (`/`)
> >  characters and collapsing runs of adjacent slashes between
> > - name components into a single slash.  Iff the normalized
> > + name components into a single slash.  If the normalized
> >  refname is valid then print it to standard output and exit
> >  with a status of 0.  (`--print` is a deprecated way to spell
> >  `--normalize`.)
> > -- 
> 
> Could that be an 'iff' == 'If and only if' (which is common in mathematics)?
> Still could be spelling error though.

When we're not sure what the intent of a change is, a good first step is to dig up the original commit via `git blame` or similar. In this case, it comes from a40e6fb67 (Change check_refname_format() to reject unnormalized refnames, 2011-09-15).

The commit message doesn't mention it (not that I really expected it to), but it does tell you who the author is. And a good second step is to cc them on the patch. :)

I suspect it _was_ intended as "iff" here. In my opinion, we probably don't need to be so rigorous in this instance. However, I note that we do not describe the "else" half of that "if". So maybe an overall improvement would be something like:

  If the normalized refname is valid then print it to standard output
  and exit with a status of 0. Otherwise, exit with a non-zero status.

-Peff