git-log: documenting pathspec usage

Hi all,

I just noticed that git-log.txt has: 

     SYNOPSIS
     --------
     [verse]
     'git log' [<options>] [<revision range>] [[--] <path>...]

and builtin/log.c has: 

     static const char * const builtin_log_usage[] = {
             N_("git log [<options>] [<revision-range>] [[--] <path>...]"),

IIUC, the references to <path> should actually be <pathspec> instead, as seen with other pathspec-supporting commands such as git add/rm whose man pages are extra helpful in explicitly calling out how pathspecs can be used, e.g.:

     OPTIONS
     -------
     <pathspec>...::
             Files to add content from.  Fileglobs (e.g. `*.c`) can
             be given to add all matching files.  Also a
             leading directory name (e.g. `dir` to add `dir/file1`
             and `dir/file2`) can be given to update the index to
             match the current state of the directory as a whole (e.g.
             specifying `dir` will record not just a file `dir/file1`
             modified in the working tree, a file `dir/file2` added to
             the working tree, but also a file `dir/file3` removed from
             the working tree). Note that older versions of Git used
             to ignore removed files; use `--no-all` option if you want
             to add modified or new files but ignore removed ones.
     +
     For more details about the <pathspec> syntax, see the 'pathspec' entry
     in linkgit:gitglossary[7].

Would it be fair to say the git-log usage syntax and man page should be updated to match? If so perhaps I can volunteer for that.

Regards, Adam

On Mon, Nov 16 2020, Adam Spiers wrote:

It seems like a good idea to make these consistent, if you're feeling
more ambitious than just git-log's manpage then:
    
    $ git grep '<pathspec>' -- Documentation/git-*.txt|wc -l
    54
    $ git grep '<path>' -- Documentation/git-*.txt|wc -l
    161

Most/all of these should probably be changed to one or the other.

I've also long wanted (but haven't come up with a patch for) that part of gitglossary to be ripped out into its own manual page, e.g. "gitpathspec(5)". And if possible for "PATTERN FORMAT" in "gitignore" to be unified with that/other docs that describe how our wildmatch.c works.

There's also the "Conditional includes" section in git-config(1) that repeats some of that, and probably other stuff I'm forgetting #leftoverbits.

Hi Adam, Hi Ævar,

And 'ls-files' uses <files>...

I completely agree. I think <pathspec> should be used for every command that takes a pathspec.

In general, there can be discrepancies between the short help of each command and the "Synopsis" section of the long help (man page). I wonder what we could do to try to keep these more in sync. In addFor example, some 'git blame' options appear only in the short help,

Ideally, there would be a single source of truth for both of these, in my opinion, but that would mean that the documentation build would somehow have to be taught to read the source code and find the 'usage' function for each Git command and feed that to the synopsis section (although the synopsis is usually more detailed than the usage). One can always dream...

That is also on my personal todo list for Git. I think it's a great idea. This way commands that take a pathspec could then link directly to this new guide.

Cheers,

Philippe.

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

There is another thing we want to normalize.

Originally <pathspec> was invented to be a collective noun (i.e. a set of one or more wildmatch patterns that specify paths that match any of these patterns is called a pathspec). These days, however, we more often refer to each individual pattern as <pathspec> than using the word in its original way. We can look for '<pathspec>...' in the documentation to find these more modern usage.

This latter form would match readers' expectation better, but there still are a few places (e.g. "stash forget <pathspec>") that use the word as a collection of pattterns. While these places may be using the word "correctly", in the modern world, they give an incorrect impression that the command somehow is special and can take a pathspec with only a single pattern, when they can take one or more patterns.

We should make sure we use "<pathspec>..." uniformly in the documentation in these places.

Thanks.