Re: [PATCH v1] diff: document -U without <n> as using default context
On Monday, 9 March 2026 18:27:19 CET Tian Yuchen wrote:
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> The documentation for '-U<n>' implies that the numeric value '<n>' is
> mandatory. However, the command line parser has historically accepted
> '-U' without a number.
>
> Strictly requiring a number for '-U' would break existing tests
> (e.g., in 't4013') and likely disrupt user scripts relying on this
> undocumented behavior.
>
> Since we are retaining this fallback behavior for backward compatibility,
> update the documentation to explicitly state that '<n>' can be omitted
> for the short option '-U'.
In this case, isn't the long option also changed to optional number, such as:
`--unified[=<n>]`
?
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>
> Signed-off-by: Tian Yuchen <cat@malon.dev>
> ---
> Documentation/diff-context-options.adoc | 2 +-
> 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/diff-context-options.adoc
> b/Documentation/diff-context-options.adoc index e161260358..655496ec3a
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> --- a/Documentation/diff-context-options.adoc
> +++ b/Documentation/diff-context-options.adoc
> @@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
> -`-U<n>`::
> +`-U[<n>]`::
> `--unified=<n>`::
> Generate diffs with _<n>_ lines of context. Defaults to
> or 3 if the config option is unset.
Jean-Noël AVILA <avila.jn@gmail.com>