threads / patch / 64587

patchcompletion: clarify support for short options and arguments

Subject: [PATCH] completion: clarify support for short options and arguments

## tl;dr

2 messages between Dec 7, 2025 and Dec 7, 2025. Diffs are folded; open one to read it.

replies: 1people: 1as markdown or json

Junio C Hamano· Dec 7, 2025, 01:03 UTC · lore

The list of supported completions in the header of the file was mostly written a long time ago when Shawn added the initial version of this script in 2006. The list explicitly states that we complete "common --long-options", which implies that we do not complete not-so-common ones and single letter options (this text dates back to May 2007).

Update the description to explicitly state that single-letter options are not completed. Also, document that arguments to options are completed, even for single-letter options (e.g., "git -c <TAB>" offers configuration variables).

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
---
 contrib/completion/git-completion.bash | 3 ++-
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

Show changes to diff +2 −1

diff --git c/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash w/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
index 73abea31b4..538dff1ee5 100644
--- c/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
+++ w/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
@@ -13,7 +13,8 @@
 #    *) git email aliases for git-send-email
 #    *) tree paths within 'ref:path/to/file' expressions
 #    *) file paths within current working directory and index
-#    *) common --long-options
+#    *) common --long-options but not single-letter options
+#    *) arguments to long and single-letter options
 #
 # To use these routines:
 #

Junio C Hamano· Dec 7, 2025, 05:38 UTC · re: Junio C Hamano · lore

Re: [PATCH] completion: clarify support for short options and arguments

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> writes:

Show 11 quoted lines

> The list of supported completions in the header of the file was
> mostly written a long time ago when Shawn added the initial version
> of this script in 2006.  The list explicitly states that we complete
> "common --long-options", which implies that we do not complete
> not-so-common ones and single letter options (this text dates back
> to May 2007).
>
> Update the description to explicitly state that single-letter
> options are not completed.  Also, document that arguments to options
> are completed, even for single-letter options (e.g., "git -c <TAB>"
> offers configuration variables).

I appended the following to the end of the proposed commit log message:

  The reason why we do not complete single-letter options is because
  it does not seem to help all that much to learn that the command
  takes -c, -d, -e options when "git foo -<TAB>" offers these three,
  unlike long options that is easier to guess what they are about.

  Because this rationale is primarily for our developers, let's leave
  it out of the completion script itself, whose messages are entirely
  for end-users.  Our developers can run "git blame" to find this
  commit as needed.