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[PATCH] rebase: do not print lots of usage hints after an obvious error message

From
Johannes Sixt <j.sixt@viscovery.net>
Date
Jun 28, 2011, 12:46 UTC
Message-ID
<4E09CD16.2040800@viscovery.net>
From: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>

When a non-existent branch was specified to be rebased, the complete usage information is printed after the error message that carries the relevant piece of information:

   $ git rebase master topci
   fatal: no such branch: topci
   usage: git rebase [-i] [options] [--onto <newbase>] [<upstream>] [<branch>]
      or: git rebase [-i] [options] --onto <newbase> --root [<branch>]
      or: git-rebase [-i] --continue | --abort | --skip
   Available options are
   [30 lines of usage stripped]

The error message was introduced recently by 4ac5356c (rebase: give a better error message for bogus branch, 2011-01-27), and the result was acceptable because the usage text was just two lines. But 45e2acf3 (rebase: define options in OPTIONS_SPEC, 2011-02-28) made things worse because the usage text is now 35 lines.

Just drop the usage information because it does not add value to the error message.

Signed-off-by: Johannes Sixt <j6t@kdbg.org>
---
 Note: git-sh-setup's die() does not print "fatal: ".
 git-rebase.sh |    3 +--
 1 files changed, 1 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/git-rebase.sh b/git-rebase.sh
index d7855ea..4761f28 100755
--- a/git-rebase.sh
+++ b/git-rebase.sh
@@ -441,8 +441,7 @@ case "$#" in
 	then
 		head_name="detached HEAD"
 	else
-		echo >&2 "fatal: no such branch: $1"
-		usage
+		die "fatal: no such branch: $1"
 	fi
 	;;
 *)
-- 
1.7.6.86.gdfda2
Next: Jeff King
Message 1 of 2 in “rebase: do not print lots of usage hints after an obvious error message”
  1. rebase: do not print lots of usage hints after an obvious error messageJohannes Sixt, Jun 28, 2011
  2. Jeff KingJun 28, 2011

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