Re: [PATCH] help: include list of aliases in git-help --all

From: Joel Nothman <joel.nothman@gmail.com>
Date: Feb 25, 2014, 22:32 UTC
Message-ID: <CAAkaFLX49C5CoXcPL9ZBLvNuHnCNg+0QSMfWLzJ0VU_wxOH5zw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqk3ci6eun.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>

On 26 February 2014 08:51, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote:

Show 10 quoted lines

> Joel Nothman <joel.nothman@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> arguments to git help. They are also like commands in that it is
>> possible to forget their name, or whether they are defined on a
>> particular workstation, and to hence want a listing.
>
> I did envision that it would be useful for the last case, but then
> the users would be helped even more if they can get a list of ONLY
> aliases, not buried in many standard commands they already know
> about.

The list is partitioned. It is partitioned already between git-installed commands and others on the path. This patch adds a third partition when required. So they *do* see only aliases... after all the commands.

Note also that any command on the path will override an alias with the same name. So in order to list (effective) aliases, you need to calculate the list of commands as well. If someone defines an alias overridden by a command, git help -a now makes that apparent by excluding the alias and including the command above it, while `git config --get-regexp ^alias` does not.

> In other words, I was not fundamentally opposed to *a* way to get a
> list that includes aliases, but I was not convinced if it is a good
> idea to *change* the output, which people knew would consist of
> commands but not aliases, to suddenly start including aliases.

I don't think this will concern most users for whom aliases are non-existent, and hence no section will be shown.