# Bug: manpage for `git ls-files` uses <file> instead of <pathspec>

2 messages from 2018-10-11 to 2018-10-13. Participants: Lily Ballard, Junio C Hamano.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/49536

## Lily Ballard, 2018-10-11 03:20

Subject: Bug: manpage for `git ls-files` uses <file> instead of <pathspec>
Message-ID: <1539228001.1758106.1538051752.20CB6C51@webmail.messagingengine.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1539228001.1758106.1538051752.20CB6C51%40webmail.messagingengine.com

```
`git ls-files` takes zero or more <pathspec>s, but the manpage (and the `-h` output) lists it as taking zero or more <file>s instead. This is confusing as <file> is documented in `man git` as a filename, without any magic. But a pathspec has a lot of special handling. The gitglossary entry for pathspec does say that `git ls-files` takes it, but nobody is going to know to look there in the first place if they look at `git ls-files` and see that it takes files. 

I haven’t checked any other commands that the glossary lists as taking pathspecs (except `git add`, which does properly list it as taking pathspecs), so I don’t know if any of the other commands incorrectly list themselves as taking files when they take pathspecs.

git version 2.19.1.

-Lily Ballard

```

## Junio C Hamano, 2018-10-13 08:03

Subject: Re: Bug: manpage for `git ls-files` uses <file> instead of <pathspec>
Message-ID: <xmqqzhvi8e9r.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/xmqqzhvi8e9r.fsf%40gitster-ct.c.googlers.com
In-Reply-To: <1539228001.1758106.1538051752.20CB6C51@webmail.messagingengine.com>

```
Lily Ballard <lily@sb.org> writes:

> I haven’t checked any other commands that the glossary lists as
> taking pathspecs (except `git add`, which does properly list it as
> taking pathspecs), so I don’t know if any of the other commands
> incorrectly list themselves as taking files when they take
> pathspecs.

I do not offhand think of a command that only takes pathname,
including "ls-files".  New users would think "git cmd README" is
taking a single filename "README", and "ls-files" doc uses "file"
in a misguided attempt to be "newbie friendly", but it always has
used that "README" string as a pattern to match paths against.

```