On Tue, Apr 16, 2024 at 03:26:33AM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> > When the user introduces an invalid option, we respond with the whole
> > help text.
>
> The verb "introduces" in the first sentence looked weird to me.
OK. I'll reword it.
> > Instead of displaying the long help description, display a short error
> > message indicating the incorrectly introduced option with a note on how
> > to get the help text.
> Is it worth changing it at this point? Does it improve the end-user
> experience in any noticeable way? I do not think I can answer these
> two questions with confident "yes".
Indeed, this has been with us for a long time. We're not fixing or
changing any normal usage here.
I know you know, but let me put it this way; We are introducing two
changes here:
- a new error message to inform the user that an invalid option has
been entered. And,
- not displaying the help if not requested.
Both are improvements to the user experience, but especially the former,
I think.
This:
$ echo W | git add -p
diff --git a/add-interactive.c b/add-interactive.c
[...]
(1/1) Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,e,?]? y - stage this hunk
n - do not stage this hunk
q - quit; do not stage this hunk or any of the remaining ones
a - stage this hunk and all later hunks in the file
[...]
Becomes:
$ echo W | ./git add -p
diff --git a/add-interactive.c b/add-interactive.c
[...]
(1/1) Stage this hunk [y,n,q,a,d,e,p,?]? Unknown option 'W' (use '?' for help)
Thanks.
