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Re: Convention for help in git commands?

From
Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date
Oct 25, 2005, 18:56 UTC
Message-ID
<7vfyqpe87x.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To
<200510251508.43552.Josef.Weidendorfer@gmx.de>
Josef Weidendorfer <Josef.Weidendorfer@gmx.de> writes:
Show 5 quoted lines
> * All git commands should react on command line option "-h"
> for help, dumping a few lines to stderr, prefixed by "usage:", giving
> the command usage without further descriptions. For the usage
> output, use the base name of the command, and not the absolute
> path to the binary.

It drives me nuts when an error message shows only basename not full path and I find out that I was running a wrong executable much later after wasting a lot of time trying to debug it. But I think "usage: " saying the basename only is user friendly and a good convention.

> * For commands which need at least one argument, the usage
> is also printed, if the command is run without argument

This is slightly debatable. I'd rather see it error out for one thing, and we might want to do a sane default given no arguments later.

> Perhaps these things should be done only for commands of the
> git lightwight porcelain?
Probably.
Previous: Josef WeidendorferNext: Martin Langhoff
Message 2 of 5 in “Convention for help in git commands?”
  1. Josef WeidendorferOct 25, 2005
  2. Junio C HamanoOct 25, 2005
  3. Martin LanghoffOct 25, 2005
  4. Josef WeidendorferOct 25, 2005
  5. Martin LanghoffOct 25, 2005

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