Re: [PATCH v2 4/6] built-ins: "properly" align continued usage output

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Sep 11, 2021, 00:25 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqfsucot4f.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <patch-v2-4.6-4547cc968b1-20210910T153147Z-avarab@gmail.com>

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

> Let's "fix" various "git <cmd> -h" output by "properly" aligning the
> output in cases where we continue usage output after a "\n". The "fix"
> and "properly" scare quotes are because this actually makes things

The "A" and "B" *in* scare quotes?

Show 11 quoted lines

> The issue is that we should have whitespace corresponding to the
> length of the command name here, e.g. in the case of "git ls-remote"
> it should be 14 characters, or the length of ""git ls-remote
> ". Instead we had 21 characters in builtin/ls-remote.c, those extra 7
> characters are the length of "usage: " (and also " or:"). So in the C
> locale the resulting output aligns nicely:
>
>     $ git ls-remote -h
>     usage: git ls-remote [--heads] [--tags] [--refs] [--upload-pack=<exec>]
>                          [-q | --quiet] [--exit-code] [--get-url]
>                          [--symref] [<repository> [<refs>...]]

Isn't this aiming for a wrong end goal? With an overly long subcommand name, we'd end up with overly deep indentation of the subsequent lines (hence too narrow a space to fit the options).

Rather, wouldn't it be better to aim for a consistent and wide enough indentation, like say two tabs, everywhere, no matter how long the subcommand name is?

Thanks.