Re: [PATCH] Show html help with git-help --html

On 6/4/07, Junio C Hamano [off-list ref] wrote:

quoted

diff --git a/Documentation/config.txt b/Documentation/config.txt
index 3d8f03d..2ec8545 100644
--- a/Documentation/config.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config.txt

@@ -261,6 +261,18 @@ core.excludeFile::

...
+core.htmlprogram::
+     Specify the program used to open html help files when 'git-help'
+     is called with option --html or core.help is other than 'man'.
+     By default, xdg-open will be used.

Is the program's calling convention something that needs to be
customizable for this to be useful?

At first I thought xdg-open would be flexible enough for most Linux
systems because it will choose the best browser you have. But I now
recall that Git does not only run on Linux.  Will make it a parameter
in config.mak.in

quoted

diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index cac0a4a..43e0d15 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile

@@ -145,6 +145,7 @@ prefix = $(HOME)
 bindir = $(prefix)/bin
 gitexecdir = $(bindir)
 sharedir = $(prefix)/share/
+htmldir = $(sharedir)/html/
 template_dir = $(sharedir)/git-core/templates/
 ifeq ($(prefix),/usr)
 sysconfdir = /etc

Is it customary to have HTMLized documentation material for
different packages all together in a single .../share/html/
directory, like manpages are placed in share/man/man1/
directory?  I somehow had an impression that a layout to have
html directory per package (i.e. share/doc/$pkg/html/) was more
common.  I dunno.

The default value is not really useful. I would leave that for
distribution package mantainers to decide proper location because they
have to install html files separately anyway (at least in Gentoo).
However it's not convenient for compiling-from-source users. Will redo
the patch and add rules to install html files also.

quoted

diff --git a/help.c b/help.c
index 6a9af4d..e3e705b 100644
--- a/help.c
+++ b/help.c

@@ -183,6 +187,36 @@ static void show_man_page(const char *git_cmd)
      execlp("man", "man", page, NULL);
 }

+static void show_html_page(const char *git_cmd)
+{
+     const char *html_dir;
+     int i,len,ret;
+     char *p;
+
+     html_dir = HTML_DIR;
+     if (!html_help_program)
+             html_help_program = "xdg-open";
+
+     /* html_help_program space html_dir git- git_cmd .html */
+     len = strlen(html_help_program) + 1 + strlen(html_dir) + 4 + strlen(git_cmd) + 5;
+     p = xmalloc(len + 1);
+
+     strcpy(p, html_help_program);
+     strcat(p," ");
+     strcat(p,html_dir);
+     if (prefixcmp(git_cmd, "git"))
+             strcat(p,"git-");
+     strcat(p,git_cmd);
+     strcat(p,".html");
+
+     ret = system(p);

This is sloppy in the presense of potentially unsafe characters...

I personally think users will not shoot themselves with "git help
--html ';rm -rf'" but again scripts can. Thank you for pointing out.
Will add check for file existence before calling system().
-- 
Duy