Re: [PATCH] doc: State coding guideline for error message punctuation
- From
Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Date
- Jul 10, 2014, 20:36 UTC
- Message-ID
- <xmqqwqbl6jey.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
- In-Reply-To
- <20140617093759.GA6267@sigill.intra.peff.net>
Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
Show 23 quoted lines
> On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 01:55:57PM +0100, Philip Oakley wrote:
>
>> +Error Messages
>> +
>> + - We typically do not end error messages with a full stop. While
>> + we've been rather inconsistent in the past, these days we mostly
>> + settle on no punctuation.
>
> Unlike Junio, I do not mind spelling out guidance for error messages.
> However, I do not think the second sentence is adding anything here
> (everything in CodingGuidelines is subject to "we did not always do it
> this way, but this is the preferred way now"). So I'd drop it.
>
> And then add in more guidance. Besides "no full stop", probably:
>
> 1. do not capitalize ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s"
>
> 2. maybe something on sentence structure / ordering? We tend to prefer
> "cannot open 'foo': No such file or directory" to "foo: cannot
> open: No such file or directory".
>
> Perhaps there are others (we do not have to be exhaustive, but it makes
> sense to think for a moment while we are here).I do not want to forever be waiting for a reroll, so let's queue this and advance it to 'next' soonish, and refine the guidelines by further building on top of it as needed.
Thanks.
-- >8 -- From: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 13:55:57 +0100 Subject: [PATCH] doc: give some guidelines for error messages
Clarify error message puntuation to reduce review workload.
Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <philipoakley@iee.org> Helped-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> --- Documentation/CodingGuidelines | 9 +++++++++ 1 file changed, 9 insertions(+)
diff --git a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines index f424dbd..f4137c6 100644 --- a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines +++ b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines @@ -264,6 +264,15 @@ For Python scripts: documentation for version 2.6 does not mention this prefix, it has been supported since version 2.6.0. +Error Messages + + - Do not end error messages with a full stop. + + - Do not capitalize ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s") + + - Say what the error is first ("cannot open %s", not "%s: cannot open") + + Writing Documentation: Most (if not all) of the documentation pages are written in the
-- 2.0.1-751-ge540734