Pratyush Yadav <me@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: >> How does "git log --help" handle the corresponding part of its >> documentation? >> >> ... goes and looks ... >> >> I wonder if it is better to just include rev-list-options.txt like >> "git-log.txt" does, instead of adding these four lines? > > Quoting from my initial email [0] about this topic: > > rev-list-options.txt is a rather large file and I'm not sure if > including it in both git-log and git-shortlog would be a good idea. > The way I see it, git-log is the "primary" log interface, and > git-shortlog is a "secondary" log interface, so git-log warrants such > a large man page, but git-shortlog doesn't especially since most > options are repeated. So maybe it is a better idea to just include a > pointer to git-rev-list in the shortlog man page. OK, so you also wondered the same thing and reached a different conclusion. Given that - "rev-list-options" being large is more or less irrelevant, if you want to give users of "short-log" an easy access to these rich options. We already do so for users of "log". - "include" files are designed to reduce readers' mental load by avoding one level of indirection and also to reduce the risk of documentaiton going stale by avoiding repeated text in multiple places, and that - if description in parts of included file only applies to one including file but not others, ifdef/ifndef mechanism can be used to customize the contents (see how rev-list-options.txt is included in pages for both "log" and "rev-list", and parts of it are shown conditionally with "ifndef::git-rev-list[]" and friends; diff-options.txt and its users give you more examples to follow). it is not such a bad idea to include the rev-list-options.txt. More importantly, having a pointer to git-rev-list page may omit what is available to users of "shortlog" (options described inside "ifndef::git-rev-list[]" in rev-list-options.txt are not visible to them) and/or describe what is not available to users of "shortlog" (those described inside "ifdef::git-rev-list[]" may not in general apply to the "log" family of commands). Thanks.
