[PATCH] cat-file: add missing [=<format>] to usage/synopsis

Christian Couder· Jul 1, 2020, 10:16 UTC · lore

When displaying cat-file usage, the fact that a <format> can be specified is only visible when lookling at the --batch and --batch-check options which are shown like this:

    --batch[=<format>]    show info and content of objects fed from the standard input
    --batch-check[=<format>]
                          show info about objects fed from the standard input

It seems more coherent and improves discovery to also show it on the usage line.

In the documentation the DESCRIPTION tells us that "The output format can be overridden using the optional <format> argument", but we can't see the <format> argument in the SYNOPSIS above the description which is confusing.

Signed-off-by: Christian Couder <chriscool@tuxfamily.org>
---
 Documentation/git-cat-file.txt | 2 +-
 builtin/cat-file.c             | 2 +-
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

Show changes to 2 files +2 −2

Documentation/git-cat-file.txt, builtin/cat-file.c

diff --git a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
index 8eca671b82..8e192d87db 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ SYNOPSIS
 --------
 [verse]
 'git cat-file' (-t [--allow-unknown-type]| -s [--allow-unknown-type]| -e | -p | <type> | --textconv | --filters ) [--path=<path>] <object>
-'git cat-file' (--batch | --batch-check) [ --textconv | --filters ] [--follow-symlinks]
+'git cat-file' (--batch[=<format>] | --batch-check[=<format>]) [ --textconv | --filters ] [--follow-symlinks]
 
 DESCRIPTION
 -----------
diff --git a/builtin/cat-file.c b/builtin/cat-file.c
index ae18e20a7c..5ebf13359e 100644
--- a/builtin/cat-file.c
+++ b/builtin/cat-file.c
@@ -596,7 +596,7 @@ static int batch_objects(struct batch_options *opt)
 
 static const char * const cat_file_usage[] = {
 	N_("git cat-file (-t [--allow-unknown-type] | -s [--allow-unknown-type] | -e | -p | <type> | --textconv | --filters) [--path=<path>] <object>"),
-	N_("git cat-file (--batch | --batch-check) [--follow-symlinks] [--textconv | --filters]"),
+	N_("git cat-file (--batch[=<format>] | --batch-check[=<format>]) [--follow-symlinks] [--textconv | --filters]"),
 	NULL
 };

-- 
2.27.0.221.ga08a83db2b.dirty

Jeff King· Jul 1, 2020, 15:03 UTC · re: Christian Couder · lore

Re: [PATCH] cat-file: add missing [=<format>] to usage/synopsis

On Wed, Jul 01, 2020 at 12:16:18PM +0200, Christian Couder wrote:

Show 15 quoted lines

> When displaying cat-file usage, the fact that a <format> can
> be specified is only visible when lookling at the --batch and
> --batch-check options which are shown like this:
> 
>     --batch[=<format>]    show info and content of objects fed from the standard input
>     --batch-check[=<format>]
>                           show info about objects fed from the standard input
> 
> It seems more coherent and improves discovery to also show it
> on the usage line.
> 
> In the documentation the DESCRIPTION tells us that "The output
> format can be overridden using the optional <format> argument",
> but we can't see the <format> argument in the SYNOPSIS above
> the description which is confusing.

Thanks, this makes sense and the patch looks good to me (it does make the line very long, but the one above is much longer anyway).

-Peff

patchcat-file: add missing [=<format>] to usage/synopsis