Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] git-merge-file doc: drop "-file" from argument placeholders

From: Martin Ågren <martin.agren@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 2, 2023, 09:29 UTC
Message-ID: <CAN0heSot6a5fabjh7NPdWhCBoUcDDpNmV0ovJ0bby1mpw8M7YA@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <ZUNpVyQYUT8TA6An@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>

On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 at 10:18, brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> wrote:

>
> On 2023-11-02 at 08:53:36, Martin Ågren wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> > Hmm, yeah. Or just "three non-filename arguments". I do wonder: doesn't
> > this mean that the second patch could/should possibly move away from the
> > notion of "object ID"/`--object-id`? (That's not trying to shift any
> > blame from one patch to the other, that's my honest reaction.)
>
> Not specifying an option would make this ambiguous.  What if I have a
> file named "e69de29bb2d1d6434b8b29ae775ad8c2e48c5391"?  Is that the
> empty blob, or is it that file?  Normally we have ways to disambiguate
> this, but those don't work here because of the positional arguments.

I didn't intend to suggest dropping the new option altogether, sorry for being unclear. I meant moving from `--object-id` to something else, such as `--blob` that you mention. Completely agreed that something explicit is needed here and that heuristics aren't possible.

> I think the name is fine.  We don't typically use the phrase "blob ID"
> anywhere, but we do say "object ID".  We'd need to say "--blob", but
> I'm not sure that's an improvement, and I fear it may be less
> understandable.

Agreed. Thanks.

Martin