Re: [PATCH v4 4/8] doc: give headings for the two and three dot notations

On 2016-07-21 03:54 PM, Philip Oakley wrote:

From: "Marc Branchaud" <redacted>

quoted

On 2016-07-20 05:10 PM, Philip Oakley wrote:

quoted

While there, also break out the other shorthand notations and
add a title for the revision range summary (which also appears
in git-rev-parse, so keep it mixed case).

Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <redacted>
---
  Documentation/revisions.txt | 58
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------
  1 file changed, 36 insertions(+), 22 deletions(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/revisions.txt b/Documentation/revisions.txt
index 6e9cd41..5b37283 100644
--- a/Documentation/revisions.txt
+++ b/Documentation/revisions.txt

@@ -242,35 +242,49 @@ specifying a single revision with the notation

described in the
  previous section means the set of commits reachable from that
  commit, following the commit ancestry chain.

-To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix '{caret}'
-notation is used.  E.g. '{caret}r1 r2' means commits reachable
-from 'r2' but exclude the ones reachable from 'r1'.
-
-This set operation appears so often that there is a shorthand
-for it.  When you have two commits 'r1' and 'r2' (named according
-to the syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above), you can ask
-for commits that are reachable from r2 excluding those that are
reachable
-from r1 by '{caret}r1 r2' and it can be written as 'r1..r2'.
-
-A similar notation 'r1\...r2' is called symmetric difference
-of 'r1' and 'r2' and is defined as
-'r1 r2 --not $(git merge-base --all r1 r2)'.
-It is the set of commits that are reachable from either one of
-'r1' (left side) or 'r2' (right side) but not from both.
-
-In these two shorthands, you can omit one end and let it default to
HEAD.
+Commit Exclusions
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+'{caret}<rev>' (caret) Notation::
+ To exclude commits reachable from a commit, a prefix '{caret}'
+ notation is used.  E.g. '{caret}r1 r2' means commits reachable
+ from 'r2' but exclude the ones reachable from 'r1'.
+
+Dotted Range Notations
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
+
+The '..' (two-dot) Range Notation::
+ The '{caret}r1 r2' set operation appears so often that there is a
shorthand
+ for it.  When you have two commits 'r1' and 'r2' (named according
+ to the syntax explained in SPECIFYING REVISIONS above), you can ask
+ for commits that are reachable from r2 excluding those that are
reachable
+ from r1 by '{caret}r1 r2' and it can be written as 'r1..r2'.
+
+The '...' (three dot) Symmetric Difference Notation::
+ A similar notation 'r1\...r2' is called symmetric difference

s/called/called the/

The wording is the original ;-) Can change.

quoted

quoted

+ of 'r1' and 'r2' and is defined as
+ 'r1 r2 --not $(git merge-base --all r1 r2)'.
+ It is the set of commits that are reachable from either one of
+ 'r1' (left side) or 'r2' (right side) but not from both.
+
+In these two shorthand notations, you can omit one end and let it
default to HEAD.
  For example, 'origin..' is a shorthand for 'origin..HEAD' and asks
"What
  did I do since I forked from the origin branch?"  Similarly,
'..origin'
  is a shorthand for 'HEAD..origin' and asks "What did the origin do
since
  I forked from them?"  Note that '..' would mean 'HEAD..HEAD' which
is an
  empty range that is both reachable and unreachable from HEAD.

-Two other shorthands for naming a set that is formed by a commit
-and its parent commits exist.  The 'r1{caret}@' notation means all
-parents of 'r1'.  'r1{caret}!' includes commit 'r1' but excludes
-all of its parents.
+Special '<rev>{caret}' Shorthand Notations
+~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sorry, but this header also does not render properly in the man page.
Maybe just "Special {caret} Shorthand Notations"?  (But read on!)

rendered fine on the MYS2 man invocation - I had had to add the <rev>
prefix to the quoted title to make it work.

What went wrong for you? (I'll read on)

Only the word "Special" is emphasized (in bold).  The rest of the header 
is plain.

I'm using asciidoc 8.6.9, so I'm likely suffering from the bug Peff 
identified.

quoted

quoted

+Two other shorthands exist, particularly useful for merge commits, is
+for naming a set that is formed by a commit and its parent commits.

-To summarize:
+The 'r1{caret}@' notation means all parents of 'r1'.
+
+'r1{caret}!' includes commit 'r1' but excludes all of its parents.

My immediate thought upon reading this is "Why not just use 'r1'?"  I
think the answer is "This truncates the range."  So, for example, "git
log r1" shows you r1 and its ancestors, while "git log r1^!" only
shows you r1.  I think you should add this example, or something similar.

I'd also asked that question in one of my replies earlier $gmane/299849.
I was then able to determine that it was a width wide 'range' covering
multi-parent situations.

Obviously, I see it more an anti-range.  You're never going to get more 
than a single commit with this notation.

Identifying an example could be good if it was succinct and explanatory.

What do you think of my example?

$ git rev-parse 6c71a849^!

quoted

But, really, this means that the notation is another "Commit
Exclusion" and properly belongs in that section.

I think it's bigger than that.

quoted

That makes this "Special Notations" section rather thin.  I suggest
moving a slightly expanded <rev>^@ description to a small subsection
just before Commit Exclusions, and deleting the Special Notations
section altogether. So add something like this:

Commit Parents
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's a bit better, but I'm still not sure it really tells the story,
maybe "Handling Commit Parent(s)", with that subtle extra emphasis!

"Specifying Commit Parents"?  Any of these work for me, really.

quoted

'<rev>{caret}@' Notation::
The 'r1{caret}@' notation means all parents of 'r1',
excluding 'r1' itself.

This smoothly re-introduces the notion of parents for readers who
skipped to this section, and helps them make sense of the <rev>^!
notation.

Plus there's no longer anything "special" about any of the syntax.

quoted

+
+Revision Range Summary
+----------------------

Sorry, but the man page renders this in all caps.  I really think you
should use ~~~~~~~~~ here.

Yes, the man page formating is annoying relative to the web page
formatting which it has to be compared against.

I felt that it was at a higher level than the other sub-headings, and
that using mixed case did work well on the html (the Git for Windows
standard).

IMHO it has to look like it's part of the SPECIFYING RANGES section.  It 
need not be higher than the other subsections though.

At the moment I'm minded to keep it as is unless others chime in.

I'll bow to the will of the majority.

quoted

M.

I'll be away till mid next week.

As will I!

		M.