Confusing language in man page

Confusing language in man page

[Satyam Sharma]

Hi,

[ I'm using Fedora's latest package. ]

>From git-checkout(1) and git-branch(1):

-l     Create the new branch's ref log. This activates recording of
all changes to made the
       branch ref, enabling use of date

I'd be glad if someone could explain that a bit more verbosely in the man page
(or just here in a reply), or at least make that grammatically
correct/readable :-)

Thanks,
Satyam

Re: Confusing language in man page

[Satyam Sharma]

On 7/14/07, Satyam Sharma <satyam.sharma@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> [ I'm using Fedora's latest package. ]

I should probably clarify:

$ git --version
git version 1.5.0.6

Perhaps man pages / functionality have been updated significantly
since that, so let me know if that's the case.

> From git-checkout(1) and git-branch(1):
>
> -l     Create the new branch's ref log. This activates recording of
> all changes to made the
>        branch ref, enabling use of date
>
> I'd be glad if someone could explain that a bit more verbosely
> in the man page
> (or just here in a reply), or at least make that grammatically
> correct/readable :-)

Ok, another confusion I hit (as I learn more about git) tonight:

* What exactly is the use of git-diff's "-p" option?

$ git diff

and

$ git diff -p

produce the same output / do the same thing -- the man page mentions
"Generate patch (see section on generating patches)" but I couldn't find
said section (is that referring to some other man page?)

* On my system, doing:

$ git diff

with no outstanding changes in my current working tree produces some
bogus newlines, throwing the prompt to the bottom of the xterm window.
This sounds like weird / undesirable behaviour and I have a feeling must
already be fixed in latest git (?)

Thanks,
Satyam

Re: Confusing language in man page

[Alex Riesen]

Satyam Sharma, Sat, Jul 14, 2007 22:27:52 +0200:
> * On my system, doing:
> 
> $ git diff
> 
> with no outstanding changes in my current working tree produces some
> bogus newlines, throwing the prompt to the bottom of the xterm window.
> This sounds like weird / undesirable behaviour and I have a feeling must
> already be fixed in latest git (?)

It is not git. It is the program less which git uses. The problem is
known to the author of less.

Re: Confusing language in man page

[Satyam Sharma]

On 7/15/07, Alex Riesen <raa.lkml@gmail.com> wrote:
> Satyam Sharma, Sat, Jul 14, 2007 22:27:52 +0200:

Ok, the first two were silly questions I got answered as I got to
know more about git automatically :-)

> > * On my system, doing:
> >
> > $ git diff
> >
> > with no outstanding changes in my current working tree produces some
> > bogus newlines, throwing the prompt to the bottom of the xterm window.
> > This sounds like weird / undesirable behaviour and I have a feeling must
> > already be fixed in latest git (?)
>
> It is not git. It is the program less which git uses. The problem is
> known to the author of less.

As for this one, I sent out a mail to bug-less@ just in case -- it's a weird
and annoying thing.

Thanks!