Re: [PATCH] Documentation/git-config.txt: reword missleading sentence

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Oct 5, 2017, 10:13 UTC
Message-ID: <CAPc5daVKM9PXYfKb3zMmCH3F8DeGcLHNtTCLDxMogOTH8uxWzg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20171005081733.18529-1-nathan.payre@etu.univ-lyon1.fr>

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 5:17 PM, PAYRE NATHAN p1508475 <second.payre@gmail.com> wrote:

> Change the word "bla" to "section.variable" to make it clear that it's a placeholder for a variable name.

Please make sure that your log message shows without wrapping and is a confortable read on a 80-column terminal by wrapping long lines.

>
> See discussion at: https://public-inbox.org/git/20171002061303.Horde.SL92grZCqTRV9oQkBFPELQ7@crashcourse.ca/

I do not think it matters that much in this particular case, but please make it a habit to assume that time of people who run "git log" to find out why the change was done is 100x more valuable than the time you need to leave a good summary of the discussion in the log message. A URL at the end _in addition to_ a summary in your words is OK; just a URL without any effort to summarize why you did this change is not.

I often find myself understanding the issues a lot better _only_ after I try to summarize the argument for a change in the log message--it forces me to _think_. And (this probably does not apply to this patch, as it is not a code change) it often results in a better code. First I come up with a solution, write a quick patch, try to explain the approach in the log message and then realize there is a better solution _only_ after doing so. It is a good habit to get into to try explaining the thought process in the log message.

> Noticed-by: rpjday@crashcourse.ca
> ---

Here, after "Reported-by:" before the three-dash line, we need your "Signed-off-by:" line. See Documentation/SubmittingPatches for details. The name and address should match what appears on the "From:" field from your e-mail.

Ah, one more thing. Do you want to be known as somebody with ALL CAPS first and last name, with student number? ;-) If it is cumbersome to convince your MUA to use your real name spelled in normal way on the "From:" header, you could start the body of your message with

    From: Payre Nathan <second.payre@gmail.com>

followed by an empty line, followed by the body of the log message.

Show 16 quoted lines

>  Documentation/git-config.txt | 4 ++--
>  1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-config.txt b/Documentation/git-config.txt
> index 83f86b923..f9808d7ad 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-config.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-config.txt
> @@ -177,8 +177,8 @@ See also <<FILES>>.
>         'git-config' will expand leading '{tilde}' to the value of
>         '$HOME', and '{tilde}user' to the home directory for the
>         specified user.  This option has no effect when setting the
> -       value (but you can use 'git config bla {tilde}/' from the
> -       command line to let your shell do the expansion).
> +       value (but you can use 'git config section.variable {tilde}/'
> +       from the command line to let your shell do the expansion).
>

The new text proposed by the patch looks good.

Note that I am not in front of a real computer, and I cannot verify if there is a whitespace breakage in the patch to make it unusable. I am guessing this one is OK (it seems there is only one SP followed by HT on the context lines).

Thanks, and welcome to Git development community.