On 13/10/2022 20:33, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote: > On Thu, Oct 13 2022, Junio C Hamano wrote: > >> Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@xxxxxxxxx> writes: >> >>>>> \ The filename pointed to by the symlink does not end in a newline >>>> While I do not think it would break anybody, I doubt it would give >>>> us much value. One line above that output is a line that any user, >>>> who is vaguely familiar with the contents being compared, can >>>> recognize as giving a pathname, the contents of the symbolic link. >>> Clearly it confused the initial reporter upthread :) >> But to such a user, I highly suspect that the rephased message above >> still looks like a warning, and will result in the same reaction. >> >> IOW, you want to explain why "does not end in a newline" is worth >> expressing in the output. Saying "does not end in a newline" alone >> would tell the user what they already know (i.e. the symlink stores >> the target filename without an extra LF at the end). > Yes, but isn't the point of the report/confusion that we're inserting > what looks like the warning you get when you forget a \n at the end of a > source file, so a user might wonder why they're seeing it at all. > > Whereas what we're *really* doing there is not really about that at all, > but just inserting a bit of magic so that the diff format & its > consumers grok that this line we're inserting there isn't supposed to > have a \n, as we're working with a filename. > > Maybe e.g.: > > diff --git a/RelNotes b/RelNotes > index d505db645be..758368388a4 120000 > --- a/RelNotes > +++ b/RelNotes > @@ -1 +1 @@ > -Documentation/RelNotes/2.38.0.txt > \ No newline at end of file > +Documentation/RelNotes/2.39.0.txt > \ No newline at end of file > > Would, for those users, be less confusing as: > > diff --git a/RelNotes b/RelNotes > index d505db645be..758368388a4 120000 > --- a/RelNotes > +++ b/RelNotes > @@ -1 +1 @@ > -Documentation/RelNotes/2.38.0.txt > \ The symlink above has no trailing NL in its filename > +Documentation/RelNotes/2.39.0.txt > \ The symlink above has no trailing NL in its filename > > *dunno* :) > Pondering on why it is thought of as a warning to be treated as an error, maybe the message implies something is missing via the negative "No" assertion, rather than simply being informative [1]. Perhaps swapping out the "No" and instead using something like "\ Without a newline at end of file" would better convey that it's just information about the file's format, and in no way a real problem. Just a thought. -- Philip [1] My comment in Git Users discussion: https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/git-users/c4f53bb2-cff6-4a76-8fa7-cd34ca88ce63n%40googlegroups.com <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/git-users/c4f53bb2-cff6-4a76-8fa7-cd34ca88ce63n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
