Re: [PATCH] Hint at "checkout -p" in the "reset --patch <type>" error message

Štěpán Němec venit, vidit, dixit 23.11.2010 16:23:

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

On Tue, Nov 23, 2010 at 03:20:58PM +0100, Štěpán Němec wrote:

quoted

diff --git a/builtin/reset.c b/builtin/reset.c
index 0037be4..fc530d2 100644
--- a/builtin/reset.c
+++ b/builtin/reset.c

@@ -309,7 +309,8 @@ int cmd_reset(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 
 	if (patch_mode) {
 		if (reset_type != NONE)
-			die("--patch is incompatible with --{hard,mixed,soft}");
+			die("--patch is incompatible with --{hard,mixed,soft}\n"
+			    "(use \"git checkout -p\" to selectively discard changes in working directory)");
 		return interactive_reset(rev, argv + i, prefix);
 	}

Should this actually print something different for --hard versus --mixed
versus --soft?

For --soft, "-p" simply makes no sense as you are not changing the index
or the working directory.

For --mixed, shouldn't we support "-p" already, as that is the default
mode?

For --hard, suggesting "checkout -p" does make sense.

Also, what about "--merge" and "--keep" modes?

All good questions, most of which occured to me, too. What I was going
to do based on the outcome of (the discussion of) this patch was at
least fix the currently out-of-date "--{hard,mixed,soft}", as the
error is signalled with the newer options (--keep and --merge) as well.
I'm not sure I could cope with anything much more complicated than that,
esp. if it involved adding some new reset functionality. :-)

The man page for git-reset points at git-checkout already.

Until we have a "verbosity level" config across all commands, I don't
favor adding a lot of hints to command error messages.

Michael