Re: [PATCH] git-push: Accept -n as a synonym for --dry-run.

[Nelson Elhage <nelhage@MIT.EDU>]

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 07:44:29PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Sign-off?

Signed-off-by: Nelson Elhage <nelhage@mit.edu>

(I can resend the entire patch, but I'll resend with a new commit
message if appropriate after any discussion plays itself out).

> 
> Indeed -n is used in many places for --dry-run, but it is not _the_
> standard way.
> 
> commit, push (as you identified), reflog, and send-email have --dry-run
> but -n is not a synonym for it.  Some of them even use -n as a shorthand
> for a more often used option than --dry-run.

Can you point to an example of a git command supporting --dry-run, and
using -n for something else? I personally would find that confusing,
since -n is a common alias for dry-run both inside and outside of git
(c.f. make, rsync, libtool). I guess patch(1) has that property, but
none of your examples from git use -n to mean something else.

In fact, reflog already supports '-n' to mean dry-run, it's just not
documented. I'll send along a documentation patch to fix that.

I got the claim that -n was "standard" from parse-options.h, which
defines OPT__DRY_RUN, which defines both -n and --dry-run switches at
the same time. Given the number of commands that treat them as
synonymous, I think it would be a win for UI consistency to make them
synonymous everywhere.

> 
> So the justification should be more like "push does not any other option
> that deserves a short-and-sweet -n better, it will not have any such
> option in the future, and --dry-run is very often used that it deserves to
> use -n as its short-hand."
> 
> I tend to agree with the first two points, but I am not sure about the
> third point.  Do people dry-push that often?

I personally use --dry-run almost every time I push, which is what
inspired this patch. Especially now that the push.default can change
the behavior of push from repo to repo, I want to be sure I know what
I'm about to push. The recent 'git push --confirm' thread suggests I
am not the only person with this concern.