Re: [PATCH] builtin-reset.c: Extend hard reset error message when using paths.

[Tim Retout <tim@retout.co.uk>]

On Mon, 2009-04-13 at 12:51 -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Tim Retout <tim@retout.co.uk> writes:
> 
> > Users who invoke 'git reset --hard <paths>' are probably trying to
> > update paths in their working directory.  The error message should
> > point them in the direction of git-checkout(1).
> 
> That is one possibility.  Another is:
> 
>     git reset --hard mester
> 
> (and you have ./mester file in the work tree) and in that case the user
> definitely didn't want to do any checkout.

I would think that this sort of typo is sufficiently rare that it should
not cause confusion - at least, no more than 'Cannot do hard reset with
paths.', which would be the current message.

> I wonder if you can tell these cases apart, and also if this (not just
> telling these apart, but what your patch adds) is worth additional
> cluttering in the running program.

Well, in my opinion the cluttering is minimal, and a line similar to
this would be useful to help these users find the right documentation...

> I certainly wouldn't mind addition to
> git-reset manual page if new people are often confused between "checking
> out paths from the index or from the named commit" and "resetting the HEAD
> to a different commit while nuking the index and the work tree state",
> though.

...and a note in the man page would be helpful as well, similar to that
in git-revert(1).  I'm happy to come up with something.

I'm aiming to reduce the frequency with which I get asked for help with
reverting a file.  Perhaps adding a <paths> form to 'revert' is what I
really want to do.

-- 
Tim Retout <tim@retout.co.uk>