Re: [PATCH] Minor grammar fix in the 'Not a git repository' message

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Feb 16, 2009, 23:33 UTC
Message-ID: <7vd4diez2z.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <8787c5894e7831bbd1ace3b2fd6649f1362d4b78.1234825069u.git.johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>

Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> It might cause less head-scratching to say 'nor any of the parent
> directories' than 'or ...' after saying that this is not a git
> repository.
> ...
> +			die("Not a git repository (nor any of the parent directories): %s", DEFAULT_GIT_DIR_ENVIRONMENT);
>  		}
>  		if (chdir(".."))
>  			die("Cannot change to %s/..: %s", cwd, strerror(errno));

The grammar may be more correct, but I wonder if the parenthesised part is adding any value to the message or instead it is making the message more confusing.

You will get this message when you are in /a/b/c/d and no .git subdirectory was found in /a/b/c/d, nor in /a/b/c, nor in /a/b,...

But the message sounds as if the command expected ".git" to be either (1) a git repository (which is false, because ".git" would mean /a/b/c/d/.git and there is no git repository there), or (2) a parent directory (of something unspecified, but a natural interpretation is "where you are"), i.e. "I wanted you to be somewhere inside .git". That obviously is not what you wanted to say.

    "No git repository ".git" found here nor in any of the parent directories"

might be an improvement, though.