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[PATCH 0/8] Doc/submodules: a few updates

From
Kaartic Sivaraam <kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com>
Date
Jan 6, 2018, 18:46 UTC
Message-ID
<20180106184614.20115-1-kaartic.sivaraam@gmail.com>

These are just a few improvements that I thought would make the documentation related to submodules a little better in various way such as readability, consistency etc., These were things I noticed while reading thise documents.

Sorry, for the highly granular patches. I did the commits as and when I was reading them and tried to keep them focused to one particular change by rebasing them as needed. In case they need some change, let me know.

I based these patches on top of 'master'.

Apart from the changes, I saw a few things that needed improvement/clarification but wasn't able to do that myself due to my limited knowledge of submodules. They are listed below. I'll add in patches for them if they are correctly clarified.

1.
 man gitsubmodules
       ·   The configuration file $GIT_DIR/config in the superproject. Typical configuration at this place is controlling if a submodule is
           recursed into at all via the active flag for example.
           If the submodule is not yet initialized, then the configuration inside the submodule does not exist yet, so configuration where to
           obtain the submodule from is configured here for example.

What's the "active flag" mentioned above? Also I find the phrase "is recursed into at all" to be a little slippery. How could it be improved?

2.
 man git submodule
       update
           ...
           checkout
               ....
               If --force is specified, the submodule will be checked out (using git checkout --force if appropriate), even if the commit
               specified in the index of the containing repository already matches the commit checked out in the submodule.

I'm not sure this is conveying all the information it should be conveying. It seems to making the user wonder, "How at all does 'git submodule update --force' differs from 'git submodule update'?" also "using git checkout --force if appropriate" seems to be invoking all sorts confusion as "appropriate" is superfluous.

How could these confusions be clarified?

--- Kaartic

Kaartic Sivaraam (8):
  Doc/gitsubmodules: split a sentence for better readability
  Doc/gitsubmodules: clearly specify advantage of submodule
  Doc/gitsubmodules: specify how submodules help in reduced size
  Doc/gitsubmodules: avoid abbreviations
  Doc/gitsubmodules: use "Git directory" consistently
  Doc/gitsubmodules: improve readability of certain lines
  Doc/git-submodule: improve readability and grammar of a sentence
  Doc/git-submodule: correctly quote important words
 Documentation/git-submodule.txt | 10 +++++-----
 Documentation/gitsubmodules.txt | 28 ++++++++++++++++------------
 2 files changed, 21 insertions(+), 17 deletions(-)
-- 
2.16.0.rc0.223.g4a4ac8367
Next: Kaartic Sivaraam
Message 1 of 44 in “Doc/submodules: a few updates”
  1. 0/8 Doc/submodules: a few updatesKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  2. 1/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: split a sentence for better readabilityKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  3. Eric SunshineJan 7, 2018
  4. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  5. 2/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: clearly specify advantage of submoduleKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  6. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  7. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  8. 3/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: specify how submodules help in reduced sizeKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  9. Eric SunshineJan 7, 2018
  10. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  11. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  12. Stefan BellerJan 9, 2018
  13. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  14. 4/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: avoid abbreviationsKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  15. Eric SunshineJan 7, 2018
  16. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  17. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  18. Stefan BellerJan 9, 2018
  19. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  20. 5/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: use "Git directory" consistentlyKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  21. Eric SunshineJan 7, 2018
  22. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  23. 6/8 Doc/gitsubmodules: improve readability of certain linesKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  24. Eric SunshineJan 7, 2018
  25. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  26. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  27. Stefan BellerJan 9, 2018
  28. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  29. 7/8 Doc/git-submodule: improve readability and grammar of a sentenceKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  30. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  31. 8/8 Doc/git-submodule: correctly quote important wordsKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 6, 2018
  32. Stefan BellerJan 8, 2018
  33. Kaartic SivaraamJan 9, 2018
  34. Stefan BellerJan 9, 2018
  35. 0/2 Doc/submodules: a few updatesKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 10, 2018
  36. 1/2 Doc/gitsubmodules: make some changes to improve readability and syntaxKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 10, 2018
  37. Stefan BellerJan 10, 2018
  38. 2/2 Doc/git-submodule: improve readability and grammar of a sentenceKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 10, 2018
  39. 0/2 Doc/submodules: a few updatesKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 14, 2018
  40. 1/2 Doc/gitsubmodules: make some changes to improve readability and syntaxKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 14, 2018
  41. Stefan BellerJan 16, 2018
  42. 2/2 Doc/git-submodule: improve readability and grammar of a sentenceKaartic Sivaraam, Jan 14, 2018
  43. Junio C HamanoJan 16, 2018
  44. Kaartic SivaraamJan 17, 2018

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