Re: Using '--help' for aliases

From: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Date: Jun 24, 2017, 17:20 UTC
Message-ID: <20170624172011.5afp3qhrec5ovynl@genre.crustytoothpaste.net>
In-Reply-To: <1498070489.32360.14.camel@gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 22, 2017 at 12:11:29AM +0530, Kaartic Sivaraam wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> I am yet another user of 'git alias' (who wouldn't ?). It has become so
> natural to me to use the aliased version that at some point of time I
> tried the following,
> 
> > $ git co --help
> > `git co' is aliased to `checkout'
> 
> That made me wonder. Git is able to inform the user that 'co' is
> aliased to 'checkout' but isn't it possible for it to take one step
> more to display help ? Just wondering if there were any reason for not
> doing it.

It's possible to do if "co" is an alias for "checkout", but it works less well when co is the following[0]:

	co = "!f() { if git checkout -h | grep -qs recurse-submodules; \
		then git checkout --recurse-submodules \"$@\"; \
		else git checkout \"$@\" && git sui; \
		fi; };f"

If this alias were to run on a Git with that option but without checkout --recurse-submodules, then it would print help and then update submodles, which isn't what I want.

[0] sui is an alias for submodule update --init.

-- 
brian m. carlson / brian with sandals: Houston, Texas, US
https://www.crustytoothpaste.net/~bmc | My opinion only
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