usage: do not insist that standard input must come from a file

The synopsys text and the usage string of subcommands that read list
of things from the standard input are often shown like this:

	git gostak [--distim] < <list-of-doshes>

This is problematic in a number of ways:

 * The way to use these commands is more often to feed them the
   output from another command, not feed them from a file.

 * Manual pages outside Git, commands that operate on the data read
   from the standard input, e.g "sort", "grep", "sed", etc., are not
   described with such a "< redirection-from-file" in their synopsys
   text.  Our doing so introduces inconsistency.

 * We do not insist on where the output should go, by saying

	git gostak [--distim] < <list-of-doshes> > <output>

 * As it is our convention to enclose placeholders inside <braket>,
   the redirection operator followed by a placeholder filename
   becomes very hard to read, both in the documentation and in the
   help text.

Let's clean them all up, after making sure that the documentation
clearly describes the modes that take information from the standard
input and what kind of things are expected on the input.

[jc: stole example for fmt-merge-msg from Jonathan]

Helped-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

11 files changed, 12 insertions, 12 deletions

diff --git a/builtin/cat-file.c b/builtin/cat-file.c
index 07baad1e5..c0fd8dbb1 100644
--- a/builtin/cat-file.c
+++ b/builtin/cat-file.c
@@ -426,7 +426,7 @@ 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) <object>"),
-	N_("git cat-file (--batch | --batch-check) [--follow-symlinks] < <list-of-objects>"),
+	N_("git cat-file (--batch | --batch-check) [--follow-symlinks]"),
 	NULL
 };
 
diff --git a/builtin/check-attr.c b/builtin/check-attr.c
index 21d2bedcc..265c9ba02 100644
--- a/builtin/check-attr.c
+++ b/builtin/check-attr.c
@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@ static int cached_attrs;
 static int stdin_paths;
 static const char * const check_attr_usage[] = {
 N_("git check-attr [-a | --all | <attr>...] [--] <pathname>..."),
-N_("git check-attr --stdin [-z] [-a | --all | <attr>...] < <list-of-paths>"),
+N_("git check-attr --stdin [-z] [-a | --all | <attr>...]"),
 NULL
 };
 
diff --git a/builtin/check-ignore.c b/builtin/check-ignore.c
index dc8d97c56..43f361797 100644
--- a/builtin/check-ignore.c
+++ b/builtin/check-ignore.c
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 static int quiet, verbose, stdin_paths, show_non_matching, no_index;
 static const char * const check_ignore_usage[] = {
 "git check-ignore [<options>] <pathname>...",
-"git check-ignore [<options>] --stdin < <list-of-paths>",
+"git check-ignore [<options>] --stdin",
 NULL
 };
 
diff --git a/builtin/commit-tree.c b/builtin/commit-tree.c
index 25aa2cdef..8747c0f2f 100644
--- a/builtin/commit-tree.c
+++ b/builtin/commit-tree.c
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 #include "utf8.h"
 #include "gpg-interface.h"
 
-static const char commit_tree_usage[] = "git commit-tree [(-p <sha1>)...] [-S[<keyid>]] [-m <message>] [-F <file>] <sha1> <changelog";
+static const char commit_tree_usage[] = "git commit-tree [(-p <sha1>)...] [-S[<keyid>]] [-m <message>] [-F <file>] <sha1>";
 
 static const char *sign_commit;
 
diff --git a/builtin/get-tar-commit-id.c b/builtin/get-tar-commit-id.c
index 6f4147ad0..e21c5416c 100644
--- a/builtin/get-tar-commit-id.c
+++ b/builtin/get-tar-commit-id.c
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 #include "quote.h"
 
 static const char builtin_get_tar_commit_id_usage[] =
-"git get-tar-commit-id < <tarfile>";
+"git get-tar-commit-id";
 
 /* ustar header + extended global header content */
 #define RECORDSIZE	(512)
diff --git a/builtin/hash-object.c b/builtin/hash-object.c
index 07fef3cc6..43b098b76 100644
--- a/builtin/hash-object.c
+++ b/builtin/hash-object.c
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ int cmd_hash_object(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 {
 	static const char * const hash_object_usage[] = {
 		N_("git hash-object [-t <type>] [-w] [--path=<file> | --no-filters] [--stdin] [--] <file>..."),
-		N_("git hash-object  --stdin-paths < <list-of-paths>"),
+		N_("git hash-object  --stdin-paths"),
 		NULL
 	};
 	const char *type = blob_type;
diff --git a/builtin/mktag.c b/builtin/mktag.c
index 640ab64f4..031b750f0 100644
--- a/builtin/mktag.c
+++ b/builtin/mktag.c
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ int cmd_mktag(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	unsigned char result_sha1[20];
 
 	if (argc != 1)
-		usage("git mktag < signaturefile");
+		usage("git mktag");
 
 	if (strbuf_read(&buf, 0, 4096) < 0) {
 		die_errno("could not read from stdin");
diff --git a/builtin/patch-id.c b/builtin/patch-id.c
index ba34dac4d..366ce5a5d 100644
--- a/builtin/patch-id.c
+++ b/builtin/patch-id.c
@@ -165,7 +165,7 @@ static void generate_id_list(int stable)
 	strbuf_release(&line_buf);
 }
 
-static const char patch_id_usage[] = "git patch-id [--stable | --unstable] < patch";
+static const char patch_id_usage[] = "git patch-id [--stable | --unstable]";
 
 static int git_patch_id_config(const char *var, const char *value, void *cb)
 {
diff --git a/builtin/show-ref.c b/builtin/show-ref.c
index 131ef28e5..264c39200 100644
--- a/builtin/show-ref.c
+++ b/builtin/show-ref.c
@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 
 static const char * const show_ref_usage[] = {
 	N_("git show-ref [-q | --quiet] [--verify] [--head] [-d | --dereference] [-s | --hash[=<n>]] [--abbrev[=<n>]] [--tags] [--heads] [--] [<pattern>...]"),
-	N_("git show-ref --exclude-existing[=<pattern>] < <ref-list>"),
+	N_("git show-ref --exclude-existing[=<pattern>]"),
 	NULL
 };
 
diff --git a/builtin/stripspace.c b/builtin/stripspace.c
index 1259ed708..958567a0c 100644
--- a/builtin/stripspace.c
+++ b/builtin/stripspace.c
@@ -78,8 +78,8 @@ static void comment_lines(struct strbuf *buf)
 }
 
 static const char *usage_msg = "\n"
-"  git stripspace [-s | --strip-comments] < input\n"
-"  git stripspace [-c | --comment-lines] < input";
+"  git stripspace [-s | --strip-comments]\n"
+"  git stripspace [-c | --comment-lines]";
 
 int cmd_stripspace(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 {
diff --git a/builtin/unpack-objects.c b/builtin/unpack-objects.c
index 7cc086f5f..7c3e79c48 100644
--- a/builtin/unpack-objects.c
+++ b/builtin/unpack-objects.c
@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 #include "fsck.h"
 
 static int dry_run, quiet, recover, has_errors, strict;
-static const char unpack_usage[] = "git unpack-objects [-n] [-q] [-r] [--strict] < pack-file";
+static const char unpack_usage[] = "git unpack-objects [-n] [-q] [-r] [--strict]";
 
 /* We always read in 4kB chunks. */
 static unsigned char buffer[4096];