Re: [PATCH v2] gitcli: tweak "man gitcli" for clarity

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Nov 23, 2017, 00:03 UTC
Message-ID: <20171123000346.GA8718@sigill>
In-Reply-To: <20171121214552.GB16418@alpha.vpn.ikke.info>

On Tue, Nov 21, 2017 at 10:45:52PM +0100, Kevin Daudt wrote:

Show 8 quoted lines

> > - * Without disambiguating `--`, Git makes a reasonable guess, but errors
> > -   out and asking you to disambiguate when ambiguous.  E.g. if you have a
> > + * Without a disambiguating `--`, Git makes a reasonable guess, but can
> > +   error out, asking you to disambiguate when ambiguous.  E.g. if you have a
> 
> 'Can' error out implies that it sometimes would not error out when there
> is ambiguity. Are there situation where git does not error out in that
> case?

I read the rest of the thread, and I think the question here is not about Git's behavior, but about parsing this sentence.

Without a "--" Git can sometimes do what you want. Or it may error out, if what you asked for is ambiguous. And that sentence is trying to cover those cases separately, and the "can" only applies to the ambiguous case.

It's pretty clear to me as it is, but maybe we can write it differently. Like:

  Without a disambiguating `--`, Git makes a reasonable guess. If it
  cannot guess (because your request is ambiguous), then it will error
  out.

-Peff