Am 02.08.2018 um 18:54 schrieb Jeff King: > PS I actually would have made the rule simply "does it begin with a > '<'", which seems simpler still. If people accidentally write "<foo", > forgetting to close their brackets, that is a bug under both the > old and new behavior (just with slightly different outcomes). Good point. We could also extend it further and check if it contains any special character, which would allow us to convert the remaining user of the flag as well: {OPTION_CALLBACK, 0, "chmod", &set_executable_bit, N_("(+/-)x"), N_("override the executable bit of the listed files"), PARSE_OPT_NONEG | PARSE_OPT_LITERAL_ARGHELP, chmod_callback}, Special characters are (, ), <, >, [, ], and |. The idea is that we shouldn't automatically treat a string as a simple replacement specifier if it looks like it has some structure to it. Side note: "(+/-)x" is marked for translation above. Any translation that is not identical would be wrong, though, because the command only accepts a literal "+x" or "-x" in any locale. So the N_ wrapper is bogus, right? Checked the output with that extended check by generating all help pages with: for cmd in $(git --list-cmds=parseopt) do git-$cmd -h done ... and found a few differences: git add: - --chmod <(+/-)x> override the executable bit of the listed files + --chmod (+/-)x override the executable bit of the listed files Good change. We also should change the slash to a pipe. git checkout-index: - --stage <1-3|all> copy out the files from named stage + --stage 1-3|all copy out the files from named stage Good change, but perhaps mention number two explicitly? git difftool: - -t, --tool <<tool>> use the specified diff tool + -t, --tool <tool> use the specified diff tool - -x, --extcmd <<command>> + -x, --extcmd <command> Aha, double angle brackets in the wild! Good change. We could also remove the explicit pairs from the option definitions. git pack-objects: - --index-version <version[,offset]> + --index-version version[,offset] Not good before, worse after. Should be to "<version>[,<offset>]". git pull: - -r, --rebase[=<false|true|merges|preserve|interactive>] + -r, --rebase[=false|true|merges|preserve|interactive] Good change, but wouldn't we want to add a pair of parentheses around the list of alternatives? git push: - --force-with-lease[=<refname>:<expect>] + --force-with-lease[=refname>:<expect] Bad change, needs explicit angular brackets (Junio's patch). - --recurse-submodules[=<check|on-demand|no>] + --recurse-submodules[=check|on-demand|no] - --signed[=<yes|no|if-asked>] + --signed[=yes|no|if-asked] git send-pack: - --signed[=<yes|no|if-asked>] + --signed[=yes|no|if-asked] Good changes all three, but need parentheses.. - --force-with-lease[=<refname>:<expect>] + --force-with-lease[=refname>:<expect] Bad change, needs explicit angular brackets (same as in Junio's patch). git shortlog: - -w[<w[,i1[,i2]]>] Linewrap output + -w[w[,i1[,i2]]] Linewrap output Not good before, worse after. Should be "[<w>[,<i1>[,<i2>]]]". git update-index: - --cacheinfo <mode>,<object>,<path> - add the specified entry to the index + --cacheinfo add the specified entry to the index Eh, what? Ah, that option is defined with PARSE_OPT_NOARG, and we only show argument help because PARSE_OPT_LITERAL_ARGHELP is also given, so we need to keep that flag for this special option. René