Sergey Organov <sorganov@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> ...
> I was looking at the merge.c code, and that's how it seems to work. You
> can get new semantics without -m, and you can't get old semantics with
> -m, isn't it? It looks like the set of descriptions I produced is
> formally correct.
The thing is, with "-m <msg>" we will never fall into the
traditional syntax, hence "git merge -m <msg> <msg> HEAD <commit>"
appear to be allowed with "git merge [options] <msg> HEAD
<commit>...", but it is not.
And the inverse is not true (an obvious example is "git merge
$branch", even though it does not have "-m <msg>" it uses the modern
& common.
So the updated SYNOPSIS is not really helping.
>> In other words, I agree with your motivation to call for attention
>> that the command behaves differently with and without "-m", but I do
>> not think that part of the change in this patch achieves it well.
>
> Any particular suggestion?
I was going to suggest "explain how the traditional syntax is
triggered in the DESCRIPTION section", but it turns out that we
already do that.
The second syntax (<msg> HEAD <commit>...) is supported for
historical reasons. Do not use it from the command line or in
new scripts. It is the same as git merge -m <msg> <commit>....
Strictly speaking, I think it is not qute "the same"---I recall
vaguely that it broke tests if you replace the traditional-style
invocation in 'git pull' with the -m <msg> syntax, but I do not have
details handy; you may want to try it out if you are interested.
So I would think
SYNOPSIS
git merge [options] <commit>...
git merge [options] <msg> HEAD <commit>...
git merge --abort
should be sufficient, possibly with some clarification on "The
second syntax" paragraph in the DESCRIPTION section.
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