Re: [PATCH 1/3] help: Fix help message for aliases

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Mar 15, 2012, 06:18 UTC
Message-ID: <7v399amlox.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <4F6182C1.9080600@lge.com>

김남형 <namhyung.kim@lge.com> writes:

Show 18 quoted lines

> 2012-03-15 2:23 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Namhyung Kim <namhyung.kim@lge.com> writes:
>>
>>> -		printf("`git %s' is aliased to `%s'\n", argv[0], alias);
>>> +		printf("`git %s' is aliased to `git %s'\n", argv[0], alias);
>>
>> NAK.
>>
>> What would the above change will do to one of my favorite alias?
>>
>> $ git help who
>> `git who' is aliased to `!sh -c 'git log -1 --format="%an<%ae>" --author="$1"' -'
>>
>> Wouldn't removing "git " from the first phrase be a better solution?
>
> Right. But as I replied to Jeff King, it can be improved to check
> whether the aliased output is such a complicated commands or not. Now
> I see that we can examine if the first letter is '!'.

Trimming the four bytes from the beginning would be an improvement by itself---it makes the output shorter without losing information.

And for your "[alias] br = branch", you will see:

	`br` is aliased to `branch`

which after all is exactly what the user wrote in the configuration.

There is even a worse problem with your "I can look at '!' at the beginning". By tweaking the part that is the answer to what the user asked, depending on the value the user configured, you would not be able to tell from this output:

	`git br` is aliased to `git branch`

which one the user really has between these two, no?

	[alias] br = branch
        [alias] br = !git branch

In short, I do not think there is any merit trying to be clever and cute when answering "git help <alias>". The cleverness will actively hurt by obscuring the details of the answer you are giving in response to user's question.

Exactly the same "don't obscure by trying to be clever and cute" comment applies to the --follow-alias patch. There is nothing wrong in the series of revelation:

 1. The user types 'git help br',
 2. The user then realizes it is aliased to 'branch' (this could even
    be 'branch --list'), then
 3. The user asks 'git help branch' (and perhaps goes to read on --list)