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| -rw-r--r-- | Documentation/gitcli.txt | 37 |
1 files changed, 33 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/gitcli.txt b/Documentation/gitcli.txt index 8fb5d889e..231604986 100644 --- a/Documentation/gitcli.txt +++ b/Documentation/gitcli.txt @@ -13,8 +13,37 @@ gitcli DESCRIPTION ----------- -This manual describes best practice in how to use git CLI. Here are -the rules that you should follow when you are scripting git: +This manual describes the convention used throughout git CLI. + +Many commands take revisions (most often "commits", but sometimes +"tree-ish", depending on the context and command) and paths as their +arguments. Here are the rules: + + * Revisions come first and then paths. + E.g. in `git diff v1.0 v2.0 arch/x86 include/asm-x86`, + `v1.0` and `v2.0` are revisions and `arch/x86` and `include/asm-x86` + are paths. + + * When an argument can be misunderstood as either a revision or a path, + they can be disambiguated by placing `\--` between them. + E.g. `git diff \-- HEAD` is, "I have a file called HEAD in my work + tree. Please show changes between the version I staged in the index + and what I have in the work tree for that file". not "show difference + between the HEAD commit and the work tree as a whole". You can say + `git diff HEAD \--` to ask for the latter. + + * Without disambiguating `\--`, git makes a reasonable guess, but errors + out and asking you to disambiguate when ambiguous. E.g. if you have a + file called HEAD in your work tree, `git diff HEAD` is ambiguous, and + you have to say either `git diff HEAD \--` or `git diff \-- HEAD` to + disambiguate. + +When writing a script that is expected to handle random user-input, it is +a good practice to make it explicit which arguments are which by placing +disambiguating `\--` at appropriate places. + +Here are the rules regarding the "flags" that you should follow when you are +scripting git: * it's preferred to use the non dashed form of git commands, which means that you should prefer `"git foo"` to `"git-foo"`. @@ -34,8 +63,8 @@ the rules that you should follow when you are scripting git: if you happen to have a file called `HEAD` in the work tree. -ENHANCED CLI ------------- +ENHANCED OPTION PARSER +---------------------- From the git 1.5.4 series and further, many git commands (not all of them at the time of the writing though) come with an enhanced option parser. |