Re: [PATCH 2/5] cat-file: mention --unordered along with --batch-all-objects

Jeff King [off-list ref] writes:

Yes, it would definitely need that extension. But it's also weirder than
that. --textconv is an OPT_CMDMODE(), because it is mutually exclusive
with "-t", etc.

Yeah, in hindsight, we should have made "--textconv" a modifier for
"-p", because it is not a true cmdmode.  It is much easier to
understand if you imagine "--textconv", without a command mode,
implies the "-p" mode, but when a command mode like "--batch" is
given, that would apply.  And it is job of other individual command
modes to notice that "--textconv" modifier does not make sense in
their context and issue a warning.

The current code uses OPT_CMDMODE() for (1) and (2), and then manually
enforces the exclusion between (1) and (3). But IMHO it is (2) that is
the odd-man out, in that it can be its own mode or a modifier, and it
probably should not be OPT_CMDMODE() (but from the end-user perspective,
that is OK, though it may influence how we document or group things).

I guess we are exactly on the same page (see "'textconv' is a
modifier, which implies '-p' command mode unless otherwise
specified" above).