Re: [PATCH] doc txt & -h consistency: fix recent "cat-file" inconsistency

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Apr 8, 2022, 18:33 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqee27mnl9.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <220408.864k34c4wo.gmgdl@evledraar.gmail.com>

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

> I think both should have the long form, but we don't need to argue that
> point here.

Right.

Show 14 quoted lines

>>     Side note: and no, we do not want to tie the documentation to a
>>     particular build too tightly, and it is a no-no to generate the
>>     documentation source from 'git cmd -h' output.  Even when an
>>     option is conditionally excluded from a particular build, I'd
>>     like to be able to build and publish documentation for wider
>>     audience than just to myself.
>
> I don't have changes to do that, but I think the particular concern
> you're airing here isn't an issue at all.
>
> I.e. whatever other issues we'd enocunter with such auto-generation we
> do not have *options* that are conditional on compilation, nor do we
> have commands that we build and don't build the corresponding
> documentation for.

The above seems to only scratch the status quo, while I was with maintainer's hat on when I wrote the above, and was considering future possibilities as well. I can very much see us accepting a patch to make "git grep -h" not showing "-P" when Git is built without pcre support, for example.

Saying "at all", is a bit too strong with the argument you have, I am afraid.