On Wednesday, 21 February 2024 18:31:30 CET Junio C Hamano wrote: > Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@xxxxxxx> writes: > > >>> ---short[=length]:: > >>> +--short[=<length>]:: > >>> Same as `--verify` but shortens the object name to a unique > >>> prefix with at least `length` characters. The minimum length > >> This same comment applies throughout this patch, but in other places > >> when we use <placeholder> in the option argument description, don't > >> we use the same <placeholder> in text as well? I am wondering if > >> the `length` (typeset in fixed-width) should become <length>. What > >> do other recent[*] documentation pages commonly do? > > > > This is another part of the inconsistences in documentation that I'd > > like to tackle (hopefully, not in another life). > > > > Using angle brackets for placeholders everywhere they appear is a > > visual link to the preceding syntax description, but may feel a bit > > heavy on some cases. Anyway, I'm all for applying the rule everywhere, > > for the sake of consistency. > > I agree that if <placeholder> is not an appropriate way to spell > them in the explanation text, we would want to change them > consistently everywhere, and until then, using the angle-bracketted > <placeholder> that is common would be better. The text will be > modified again when we decide to switch from <placeholder> to > something else, so updating them now may be a wasted effort, but (1) > we may decide that <placeholder> is good enough after all, or (2) it > may make it easier to mechanically identify words whose mark-up > should be converted if we consistently use <placeholder> now, even > if we know it won't be the final mark-up. > > So I am inclined to say that we should first do `length` -> <length> > in the body text in the short term. But I also think we should > *not* do so as part of this patch, whose focus is how the option > enumeration header should mark up the option arguments. > > > Backticks and single quotes are used indistinctively (by the way, > > asciidoctor does not process single quotes as markup) and are not used > > everywhere they should. Using backticks is also a good hint for > > translators to mean "verbatim, do not translate". Obviously, the > > placeholders ask for translation, so the backtick rule should not > > apply to them, even if another formating would be welcome : > > _<placeholder>_ for instance? > > Yes. The way AsciiDoc renders (at least HTML) an unadorned <placeholder> > is not so great. > > In "git-add.html" manual page, we see these examples. The first one > (unadorned) does not make the placeholder word stand out enough; the > second one that does `<file>` makes it stand out better, but as you > said, the `verbatim` mark-up is semantically wrong. > > https://git.github.io/htmldocs/git-add.html#:~:text=For%20more%20details%20about%20the%20%3Cpathspec%3E%20syntax > > https://git.github.io/htmldocs/git-add.html#:~:text=Pathspec%20is%20passed%20in%20%3Cfile%3E%20instead%20of%20commandline%20args.%20If%20%3Cfile%3E%20is%20exactly%20%2D%20then%20standard%20input%20is%20used.%20Pathspec > > The last part of the Documentation/CodingGuidelines document talks > about how to mark up placeholders but it does not go beyond saying > that they are written as <hyphen-in-between-words-in-angle-braket>. > Whatever mark-up rule we decide to use, we should document it there. > > Thanks. > > > > Hi, I just saw that you pushed this series to 'next'. That's embarrassing because I missed other spots in the file were the formating was not correct. I was also preparing the changes of placeholders in paragraphs as suggested. Should I prepare another PR? Thanks
