Re: [PATCH 1/1] git-clean.txt: specify core.excludesFile variable is used

On Wed, 6 Mar 2019 at 12:17, Denton Liu <liu.denton@gmail.com> wrote:

Nit: I suppose it doesn't so much document it, as mention it. So

  In the git-clean documentation, we mention .gitignore and
  $GIT_DIR/info/excludes, but neglect to mention the file pointed to by
  core.excludesFile.

perhaps.

The commit message correctly phrases it as "the file pointed to by", whereas this could give the impression that the config variable is supposed to provide patterns, not a filename. But if the choice is between creating a longer, more language-lawyer-correct phrasing and a shorter one that everyone will understand, I'll choose the latter any day.

But on the topic of preferring shorter, I sort of wonder if we really need to provide all of those filenames here. The point we're trying to make is that we consider another source. So something like this would be just as technically correct, I think:

  Use the given exclude pattern in addition to those found in .gitignore
  and similar files (see linkgit:gitignore[5]).

This also places the interesting (IMHO) part of the sentence at the front, rather than at the end.

From gitignore(5), I get the impression that patterns provided using `--exclude` take precedence over those found in those files we're listing. Whether or not that is the case here might perhaps be more interesting than the exact list of files. Does that make sense?

Nit: Not new in this patch, but I think you could add a few `backticks`
while you're here to render things like `.gitignore` and
`$GIT_DIR/info/exclude/` in monospace.

Martin