Re: [PATCH v3 1/2] git-merge-file doc: drop "-file" from argument placeholders
- From
brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
- Date
- Nov 2, 2023, 09:18 UTC
- Message-ID
- <ZUNpVyQYUT8TA6An@tapette.crustytoothpaste.net>
- In-Reply-To
- <CAN0heSrv7MPcEwkq4uEtv9uBbqm4FLKQLE3gdsEbqKkxPXOj5A@mail.gmail.com>
On 2023-11-02 at 08:53:36, Martin Ågren wrote:
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> On Thu, 2 Nov 2023 at 00:53, Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> wrote: > > > > "brian m. carlson" <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net> writes: > > > > > From: Martin Ågren <martin.agren@gmail.com> > > > > > > `git merge-file` takes three positional arguments. Each of them is > > > documented as `<foo-file>`. In preparation for teaching this command to > > > alternatively take three object IDs, make these placeholders a bit more > > > > Minor nit. Don't we want to say "three blob object names"? Unless > > we plan to grow this feature into accepting three tree object names, > > that is. > > 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.
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> Ah, yes, I thought I recognized this. Quoting your response [1] to v2: > > > I briefly thought about suggesting --blob-id instead of --object-id > > simply because you'd never want to feed it trees and commits, but > > the error message from read_mmblob() the users would get mentions > > 'blob' to signal that non-blob objects are unwelcome, so the name of > > the optionwould be OK as-is. > > Maybe you having a similar reaction a second time makes this smell a bit > more?
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.
-- brian m. carlson (he/him or they/them) Toronto, Ontario, CA