The option help text for the force-with-lease option to "git push" reads like this: $ git push -h 2>&1 | grep -e force-with-lease --force-with-lease[=<refname>:<expect>] which come from this 0, CAS_OPT_NAME, &cas, N_("refname>:<expect"), in the source code, with an aparent lack of "<" and ">" at both ends. It turns out that parse-options machinery takes the whole string and encloses it inside a pair of "<>", expecting that it is a single placeholder. The help string was written in a funnily unbalanced way knowing that the end result would balance out. Add a comment to save future readers from wasting time just like I did ;-) Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> --- builtin/push.c | 1 + 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+) diff --git a/builtin/push.c b/builtin/push.c index 9cd8e8cd56..9608b0cc4f 100644 --- a/builtin/push.c +++ b/builtin/push.c @@ -558,6 +558,7 @@ int cmd_push(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) OPT_BIT( 0, "porcelain", &flags, N_("machine-readable output"), TRANSPORT_PUSH_PORCELAIN), OPT_BIT('f', "force", &flags, N_("force updates"), TRANSPORT_PUSH_FORCE), { OPTION_CALLBACK, + /* N_() will get "<>" around, resulting in "<refname>:<expect>" */ 0, CAS_OPT_NAME, &cas, N_("refname>:<expect"), N_("require old value of ref to be at this value"), PARSE_OPT_OPTARG, parseopt_push_cas_option }, -- 2.18.0-321-gffc6fa0e39