On Wed, Nov 4, 2020 at 8:25 AM Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > The --stdout and --output-directory options are mutually exclusive, but > it's hard to tell from reading the code. We have three separate > conditionals that check for use_stdout, and it's only after we've set up > the output_directory fully that we check whether the user also specified > --stdout. > > Instead, let's check the exclusion explicitly first, then have a single > conditional that handles stdout versus an output directory. This is > slightly easier to follow now, and also will keep things sane when we > add another output mode in a future patch. > > Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> > --- > diff --git a/builtin/log.c b/builtin/log.c > @@ -1942,20 +1942,20 @@ int cmd_format_patch(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) > + if (use_stdout + !!output_directory > 1) > + die(_("specify only one of --stdout, --output, and --output-directory")); Is mention of --output intentional here? The commit message only talks about --stdout and --output-directory. It's subjective, but "mutually exclusive" sounds a bit more consistent with other similar error messages elsewhere: --stdout, --output, and --output-directory are mutually exclusive