Re: [PATCH] git-submodule.txt: fix AsciiDoc formatting error

From: Denton Liu <liu.denton@gmail.com>
Date: Sep 13, 2019, 22:09 UTC
Message-ID: <20190913220902.GA93452@dentonliu-ltm.internal.salesforce.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqk1acdqf8.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>

On Fri, Sep 13, 2019 at 11:03:39AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 52 quoted lines

> Denton Liu <liu.denton@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > Remove surrounding parentheses so that the "index term" syntax is not
> > triggered (and because it looks nicer without them anyway ;) ).
> 
> "Correct" always trumps "nicer", though ;-)
> 
> The $USAGE string in the script describes the available options to
> this subcommand like so:
> 
>     or: $dashless [--quiet] set-branch (--default|--branch <branch>) [--] <path>
> 
> which is, "you can give either --default or --branch <branch>, but
> not both".  What the original, if there were no special meaning in
> double-paren, meant to say seems to (almost) match that.
> 
> > -set-branch ((-d|--default)|(-b|--branch <branch>)) [--] <path>::
> 
> I say "almost", as it gives a wrong impression that you can give
> "-b" without "<branch>" X-<.
> 
> Now what does the updated text say to us?
> 
> > +set-branch (-d|--default)|(-b|--branch <branch>) [--] <path>::
> 
> I think the attempt to cram the short-form is unnecessarily
> cluttering and making the result incorrect.  How about doing
> something like this instead?
> 
>  Documentation/git-submodule.txt | 8 +++++---
>  1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
> index 0ed5c24dc1..816baa7dd0 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-submodule.txt
> @@ -173,10 +173,12 @@ submodule with the `--init` option.
>  If `--recursive` is specified, this command will recurse into the
>  registered submodules, and update any nested submodules within.
>  --
> -set-branch ((-d|--default)|(-b|--branch <branch>)) [--] <path>::
> +set-branch (--default|--branch <branch>) [--] <path>::
>  	Sets the default remote tracking branch for the submodule. The
> -	`--branch` option allows the remote branch to be specified. The
> -	`--default` option removes the submodule.<name>.branch configuration
> +	`--branch` option (or its short-form, `-b <branch>`)
> +	allows the remote branch to be specified. The
> +	`--default` option (or its short-form, `-d`)
> +	removes the submodule.<name>.branch configuration
>  	key, which causes the tracking branch to default to 'master'.
>  
>  summary [--cached|--files] [(-n|--summary-limit) <n>] [commit] [--] [<path>...]::

Hmm, I don't really like this since with every other subcommand, the short-forms are in the command summary so it's obvious to the reader in a quick glance which options are available. With this change, a reader would have to not only read the summary line but also scan the blurb below.

In the context line above, we see `[(-n|--summary-limit) <n>]` as a possible way of notating a short and long option with argument. What do you think about the following potential output?

	set-branch (-d|--default)|((-b|--branch) <branch>) [--] <path>::

Of course, we reintroduce the double paren problem but I can dig into asciidoc syntax and figure out how to escape it properly.