From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Theodore Tso Subject: Re: Questions about git-rev-parse Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:40:36 -0500 Message-ID: <20070228064036.GF2178@thunk.org> References: <7vvehn2eds.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net> <20070228025258.GD2178@thunk.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Cc: Junio C Hamano , git@vger.kernel.org To: Linus Torvalds X-From: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Wed Feb 28 07:40:57 2007 Return-path: Envelope-to: gcvg-git@gmane.org Received: from vger.kernel.org ([209.132.176.167]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1HMIUf-0002T1-4Q for gcvg-git@gmane.org; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 07:40:53 +0100 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1751200AbXB1Gkl (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:40:41 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751254AbXB1Gkl (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:40:41 -0500 Received: from thunk.org ([69.25.196.29]:35899 "EHLO thunker.thunk.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751209AbXB1Gkk (ORCPT ); Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:40:40 -0500 Received: from root (helo=candygram.thunk.org) by thunker.thunk.org with local-esmtps (tls_cipher TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.50 #1 (Debian)) id 1HMIZs-000560-T4; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:46:17 -0500 Received: from tytso by candygram.thunk.org with local (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1HMIUO-0001w6-3I; Wed, 28 Feb 2007 01:40:36 -0500 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.12-2006-07-14 X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: tytso@thunk.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No (on thunker.thunk.org); SAEximRunCond expanded to false Sender: git-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: On Tue, Feb 27, 2007 at 07:33:03PM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > No, it really is English. At least grammatically. > > A "tree-ish" is "like a tree", exactly like "sheepish" is "like a sheep". > Nothing really git-specific about it, except for it certainly having > become common usage in a way that it may not be normally ;) Well, in the randomhouse web page you quoted: Our -ish is a suffix that forms adjectives from nouns or other adjectives. Some of the senses existed in Old English (then spelled -isc but pronounced the same way), such as 'of, being, or pertaining to', used to form adjectives indicating a national, ethnic, or religious origin (British, Jewish). it claims that the -ish suffix forms an _adjective_. But in the sense of git describe In the git world we are using "committish" (and in the documentation sometimes we use committish and treeish, and other times we use commit-ish and tree-ish) as a _noun_, and not an adjective. So I'm still going to take a bit of issue that it's grammatical English, and I still think that "tree_specifier" and "commit_specifier" would have been clearer. In any case, I note that in the git(7) man page, there is a formal definition of tree-ish, but not of commit-ish. Would this patch to Documentation/git.txt be correct? diff --git a/Documentation/git.txt b/Documentation/git.txt index 9a74747..ff693c3 100644 --- a/Documentation/git.txt +++ b/Documentation/git.txt @@ -241,6 +241,12 @@ Identifier Terminology operate on a object but automatically dereferences and objects that point at a . +:: + Indicates a commit or tag object name. A + command that takes a argument ultimately wants to + operate on a object but automatically dereferences + objects that point at a . + :: Indicates that an object type is required. Currently one of: `blob`, `tree`, `commit`, or `tag`. - Ted