From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Documentation/log: fix description of format.pretty
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2012 07:38:55 -0800
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To: Ramkumar Ramachandra <artagnon@gmail.com>
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Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

> Oops, I read about `--pretty` in pretty-formats.txt and didn't realize
> that `--format` existed.  However, your patch is still wrong because
> there seems to be a subtle (and confusing) difference between
> `--pretty` and `--format`.  In the latter, you can't omit the format,
> and expect it to be picked up from format.pretty:
>
>   $ git log --format
>   fatal: unrecognized argument: --format

You can do

	$ git log

and format.pretty will still take effect.  In other words, setting
format.pretty to "foo" is somewhat like making

	$ git log

do

	$ git log --format=foo

which is what the text is supposed to explain.  It is based on the
following text from Documentation/config.txt:

	format.pretty::
		The default pretty format for log/show/whatchanged command,
		See linkgit:git-log[1], linkgit:git-show[1],
		linkgit:git-whatchanged[1].

I do imagine it can be made clearer.  s/--format/--pretty/ does not go
far enough --- it only replaces one confusing explanation with
another.

Hoping that clarifies,
Jonathan