From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2015 17:48:26 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] commit: reword --author error message
Message-ID: <xmqq4mrs7x5h.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <84cf10a22858275d6e213311c93df7f6a5408f60.1421331608.git.git@drmicha.warpmail.net>

Michael J Gruber <git@drmicha.warpmail.net> writes:

> If an --author argument is specified but does not contain a '>' then git tries
> to find the argument within the exiting authors; and gives the error
> message "No existing author found with '%s'" if there is no match.
>
> This is confusing for users who try to specify a valid complete author
> name.

I suspect that you meant s/a valid/an invalid/, as if it is valid,
it cannot not contain '>' (after all, '>' is merely a rough
approximation to check if it is "Name <email>" format).

> Rename the error message to make it clearer that the failure has two
> reasons in this case:
> "Bad --author parameter '%s': neither completely wellformed nor part of
> an existing one"

You are trying to help a user who thought "Who www.where.com" was a
valid thing to pass to --author; "it is not completely wellformed"
is not very helpful without making her realize what in that bogus
string is not "completely well-formed".

Perhaps

  "--author '%s' is not 'Name <email>' and no existing author matches that string"

or somesuch?