threads / patch / 56564

patchrev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

Subject: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

## tl;dr

7 messages between Sep 22, 2021 and Sep 22, 2021. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 6people: 4as markdown or json

Bagas Sanjaya· Sep 22, 2021, 11:17 UTC · lore

There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.

Signed-off-by: Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com>
---
 builtin/rev-parse.c | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

Show changes to builtin/rev-parse.c +1 −1

diff --git a/builtin/rev-parse.c b/builtin/rev-parse.c
index 22c4e1a4ff..a35dbad6c4 100644
--- a/builtin/rev-parse.c
+++ b/builtin/rev-parse.c
@@ -439,7 +439,7 @@ static int cmd_parseopt(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 		ALLOC_GROW(usage, unb + 1, usz);
 		if (!strcmp("--", sb.buf)) {
 			if (unb < 1)
-				die(_("no usage string given before the `--' separator"));
+				die(_("no usage string given before the `--` separator"));
 			usage[unb] = NULL;
 			break;
 		}

base-commit: 99c99ed8259bf070cd8ae7b51a94904b7cf5c161

-- 
2.25.1

Taylor Blau· Sep 22, 2021, 17:40 UTC · re: Bagas Sanjaya · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 06:17:45PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:

> There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string
> given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.

For what it's worth, I think that the `' style is typographic, since the pair look like English "smart quotes" (as opposed to straight quotes). I have no opinion about which is better, but I don't think the pre-image was necessarily a mistake.

Thanks, Taylor

Junio C Hamano· Sep 22, 2021, 19:28 UTC · re: Taylor Blau · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 06:17:45PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>> There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string
>> given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.
>
> For what it's worth, I think that the `' style is typographic, since the
> pair look like English "smart quotes" (as opposed to straight quotes). I
> have no opinion about which is better, but I don't think the pre-image
> was necessarily a mistake.

I thought that we try to avoid "smart quotes" in our messages.

And we do not expect our users to be expecting to read their error messages in markdown, so `--` is not a "Fix", either (do we have many instances of such uses of backticks in messages already?).

Let's just stick to the true and tried pair of single quotes here.

Thanks.

Taylor Blau· Sep 22, 2021, 19:42 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 12:28:22PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:
>
> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 06:17:45PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
> >> There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string
> >> given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.
> >
> > For what it's worth, I think that the `' style is typographic, since the
> > pair look like English "smart quotes" (as opposed to straight quotes). I
> > have no opinion about which is better, but I don't think the pre-image
> > was necessarily a mistake.
>
> I thought that we try to avoid "smart quotes" in our messages.

I think UTF-8 smart quotes are generally frowned upon in source code, but I didn't think we had any hard-and-fast rule about whether to prefer 'this' to `that' (for what it's worth, I prefer the former and it seems to be more common).

> And we do not expect our users to be expecting to read their error
> messages in markdown, so `--` is not a "Fix", either (do we have
> many instances of such uses of backticks in messages already?).

There are many in code comments, but I could only find a handful in error messages or the description of command-line flags.

Thanks, Taylor

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason· Sep 22, 2021, 19:59 UTC · re: Taylor Blau · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

On Wed, Sep 22 2021, Taylor Blau wrote:

Show 18 quoted lines

> On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 12:28:22PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:
>>
>> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 06:17:45PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
>> >> There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string
>> >> given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.
>> >
>> > For what it's worth, I think that the `' style is typographic, since the
>> > pair look like English "smart quotes" (as opposed to straight quotes). I
>> > have no opinion about which is better, but I don't think the pre-image
>> > was necessarily a mistake.
>>
>> I thought that we try to avoid "smart quotes" in our messages.
>
> I think UTF-8 smart quotes are generally frowned upon in source code,
> but I didn't think we had any hard-and-fast rule about whether to prefer
> 'this' to `that' (for what it's worth, I prefer the former and it seems
> to be more common).

No comment on what's preferred, other than I wish we'd pick a style and stick to it. Just a note that this used to be the way to do it in e.g. the GNU guidelines, I see it isn't anymore though: [1].

1. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Quote-Characters-1

Taylor Blau· Sep 22, 2021, 20:08 UTC · re: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 09:59:51PM +0200, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:

Show 25 quoted lines

>
> On Wed, Sep 22 2021, Taylor Blau wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 12:28:22PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> >> Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:
> >>
> >> > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 06:17:45PM +0700, Bagas Sanjaya wrote:
> >> >> There is a quoting mismatch quoting `--` separator in "no usage string
> >> >> given...." message (`' instead of ``). Fix it.
> >> >
> >> > For what it's worth, I think that the `' style is typographic, since the
> >> > pair look like English "smart quotes" (as opposed to straight quotes). I
> >> > have no opinion about which is better, but I don't think the pre-image
> >> > was necessarily a mistake.
> >>
> >> I thought that we try to avoid "smart quotes" in our messages.
> >
> > I think UTF-8 smart quotes are generally frowned upon in source code,
> > but I didn't think we had any hard-and-fast rule about whether to prefer
> > 'this' to `that' (for what it's worth, I prefer the former and it seems
> > to be more common).
>
> No comment on what's preferred, other than I wish we'd pick a style and
> stick to it. Just a note that this used to be the way to do it in
> e.g. the GNU guidelines, I see it isn't anymore though: [1].

I agree. But for what it's worth, I think we should:

  - accept patches, such as this one, which move things in a positive
    direction

  - not spend a ton of time or reviewer bandwidth on conversions
    throughout the tree

In other words, I'm happy to see patches like this, or little clean-ups along the way in related areas, but I would be unhappy to see a massive patch to change all instances from one to the other.

> 1. https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/standards.html#Quote-Characters-1

Thanks, Taylor

Junio C Hamano· Sep 22, 2021, 20:58 UTC · re: Taylor Blau · lore

Re: [PATCH] rev-parse: fix mismatch quoting of separator in the message

Taylor Blau <me@ttaylorr.com> writes:

Show 11 quoted lines

> I agree. But for what it's worth, I think we should:
>
>   - accept patches, such as this one, which move things in a positive
>     direction
>
>   - not spend a ton of time or reviewer bandwidth on conversions
>     throughout the tree
>
> In other words, I'm happy to see patches like this, or little clean-ups
> along the way in related areas, but I would be unhappy to see a massive
> patch to change all instances from one to the other.

Oh, absolutely. But let's not accept a small patch that swaps one bad style `--' to another bad one `--`, which does not improve anything.