cosmetic bug: "git show --pretty:format" produces different output than "git show --format"

Hi!

I noticed that git produces differing output for "git show --pretty:format show" and "git show --format", even though the man page says that both are equivalent. "git show --format" always appends an empty line at the end. The only way I've found to get rid of that empty line in --format is by adding -s option.

So, "git show --pretty:format" and "git show -s --format" do produce the same output.

I can reproduce this issue in Ubuntu Trusty (git version 1.9.1) and Debian Jessie (git version 2.1.4).

Francesc Zacarias schrieb am 15.01.2015 um 14:55:

The first part of the man page is a bit sloppy, but refers to the FORMAT section. There, it says that "--pretty" is equivalent to "--pretty=tformat:" which is different from "--pretty=format:".

Unfortunately, "--format" seems to be parsed as ("--pretty" and therefore?) "--pretty=tformat:" which I consider a bug.

Michael

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

"tformat:" was introduced to fix "format:, because many people found the latter hard to use, probably because most of the time they wanted to use the feature to show one-line-per-commit and a LF after each record ("terminator semantics" where 't' in "tformat:" comes from) made more sense in that context, compared to a LF between each record ("delimiter semantics").

Of course, "format:" that uses the delimiter semantics has its uses; after all, the delimiter semantics is what is used for canned formats, other than --oneline.

It was a deliberate design decision to make "--format=<string>" as a short-hand for "--pretty=tformat:<string>", favouring "tformat:" over "format:", AFAIK. To use the facility to show a break between each (likely multi-line) record, use "--pretty=format:<string>", not "--pretty=tformat:<string>" aka "--format=<string>".

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

It is indeed sloppy. It says --(pretty|format)=<format> can take these canned <format>s or 'format:<string>', but

 - it does not say it can also take 'tformat:<string>' at all; and

 - it does not say a <format> that is none of the above is dwimmed
   with 'tformat:' prefixed.

Perhaps something like this is needed.

 Documentation/pretty-options.txt | 10 +++++++---
 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)