Re: [PATCH v2] Documentation/remote-helpers: Add invocation section

Hi Jonathan,

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 12:07 AM, Jonathan Nieder [off-list ref] wrote:

 The first argument identifies a <repository> as it would be specified to
 git; typically, this is either a configured remote nickname or a URL.

First, "identifies a <repository> as it would be specified to git"
doesn't emphasize on the fact that the repository is remote- it
emphasizes on repository, which isn't the desired result. Secondly,
why use the term "remote nickname"? `git remote add` adds a "remote",
not a "remote nickname" and similarly.

 The second argument, if present, is a URL for the remote repository.
 without such an argument, invocations for remotes with multiple
 URLs set would be ambiguous.

Okay. I've explained what the ambiguity means in v3 of the patch. Thanks :)

 If the second argument is missing,
 this remote nickname does not have a URL set and should probably have
 some transport-specific configuration set up separately.

I guess this didn't come out right. I'm dropping this line because I
don't think it's necessary. Including this line would mean that we'd
also need to explain other exceptional cases, like when the first
argument is not really a configured remote etc.

 The URL in the second argument can be an arbitrary string.  It is up
 to the remote helper to assign meaning to it.

I'm not sure this is correct. Here's an excerpt from remote.c
	if (argc > 2) {
		url = argv[2];
	} else {
		url = remote->url[0];
	}
Notice how url is set to remote->url[0], in the `else` branch, where
the remote is an "ordinary remote" built by remote_get(). Even though
url may be any arbitrary string in the `if` branch, there'll be
problems when the program gets into the `else` branch transparently.

-- Ram