From: Junio C Hamano Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:44:46 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCHv3 3/4] git-status: show short sequencer state Message-ID: <7vfw4caxkh.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: <50A3A040.7040304@cisco.com> Phil Hord writes: > Consider the usage: > > git status # show work-tree status > git status --short # show short work-tree status > git status --tokens # show work-tree status in token form OK, your --tokens is more about *how* things are output, but it is unclear how it would interact with --short. I had an impression that you are basing your output on the short output, whose existing record include "##" (that shows the branch names and states), and "MM", "A " and friends (that show the per-file states), by adding new record types that shows tree-wide states. > But maybe "--tokens" has some better meaning that someone will want to > use in the future. I'm not married to it. But "git status" already > means "Show the working tree status". So "git status --show-tree-state" > sounds redundant or meaningless. I didn't mean to say that you have to spell out all these words; "show" and "state" are redundant. The important part is that unlike the existing "per-file" state the "status" command is showing, the option is to add "tree-wide" state to the output, and my suggestion was to pick a word that makes it clear, rather than using "output is done using tokens" without saying "what is being output in tokenized form".