Re: [PATCH v2] branch -D: allow - as abbreviation of '@{-1}'

Hi, and thanks for the quick reroll.

A small advice: don't hesitate to reply to reviewers in the thread for
v1. As a reviewer, I appreciate a quick reply like "OK, will do in v2",
or even "I disagree, I think my version is better because: ..." (I'm not
_always_ right ;-) ).

Elena Petrashen [off-list ref] writes:

Signed-off-by: Elena Petrashen <redacted>
---
This micro-patch is meant to allow “-“ as a short-hand for
“@{-1} for branch -D (Cf. $gmane/230828):

* based on the discussion on the previous version of the patch,
added the advice on how to restore the deleted branch using
git branch deleted_name sha1 - to ensure safety and 
newbie-friendliness

* git branch (-d | -D) is not supposed to accept any other
arguments except for branch name so it makes sense to replace
the argv[i] with @{-1}. We will not lose the opportunity to
use it for something different for other git branch uses if
we will decide it’s required.

As much as possible, try to distinguish new things in this version and
general remarks on your patch. Here, the first point is new and could
appear below "Changes since v1". The second is not new, I think you can
either consider that it is a followup to previous discussion (as Eric
interpreted it in v1) and remove the comment from v2, or consider it as
a justification of why your patch is sensible and include it in the
commit message (what I suggested in v1, but Eric more or less convinced
me that I was wrong).

* if there’s no previous branch in the repository yet, a
specific warning message is given

As I said in v1, I think this is a separate topic and should be moved to
a separate patch. As I said above, you are free to disagree (and it's
not terribly important), but avoid leaving discussions open.

One point in favor of splitting the patch is that it's a good exercice
for a newcommer ;-).

+	if (!strcmp(argv[dash_position], "-")){

Style: space between ) and {.

Nit: the blank line removal is not needed.

+			if (dash_shortcut == 1)
+			       printf( _("\nIf that happened by mistake, you may want to restore"

Style: no space after (.

+				" it with:\n\ngit branch %s %s\n"), bname.buf,
+				find_unique_abbrev(sha1, DEFAULT_ABBREV));

I think the message is overly long (4 '\n', and I think "If that
happened by mistake" is not needed, just "to restore the branch,
run ..." would be enough).

A rule that is usually applied for messages with Git:

* If the message is triggered by a user-error, then it's OK to have a
  long and possibly scary message: advanced users are not supposed to
  see it.

* If the message is seen by normal users in daily usage, then

  - we try to keep it as short as possible.

  - if it's not short enough, we allow disabling it with an advice.*
    configuration variable.

-- 
Matthieu Moy
http://www-verimag.imag.fr/~moy/