Bug#666250: [PATCH] Documentation: replace 'vi' for 'editor' to reflect build-time option

[Rodrigo Silva <linux@rodrigosilva.com>]

At 23:16 29/3/2012, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> Filling in the blank at compile time would be possible, but I'm not
>> convinced it's a good idea.  Wouldn't the same user be just as puzzled
>> when
>>
>>   http://git.kernel.org/?p=git/git-htmldocs.git;a=blob_plain;f=git-var.html
>>
>> (or whatever page with a nicer URL arises to replace the old
>> www.kernel.org/...  pages) says the fallback is 'vi' and git behaves
>> differently?
>
>I've already rejected this patch once, but that was primarily because the
>patch was not justified with the above "I read everybody else's git uses
>'vi' on the Interweb, and even though my distro's manual page says it uses
>'nano', I didn't bother to read it." scenario.

@Jonathan: I'm really sorry for this confusion... I forgot to mention this issue WAS taken to upstream already, and it was rejected because build-time options should be documented by whoever did the changes. So in this case, it's Debian's task to update their man pags to reflect their build-time changes. Junio suggested me to send this patch to Debian, that's why I filled the bug in Debian BTS. It was meant to be a Debian-only patch.

So upstream git man would still say "... and finally 'vi'", since this is upstream default, and Debian would read "... and finally 'editor'", since this is the default set by Debian at build-time. For reference, the original patch included this change, among others:

diff --git a/Documentation/git-var.txt b/Documentation/git-var.txt
index 5317cc2..9c49163 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-var.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-var.txt
@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ GIT_EDITOR::
     `$SOME_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE`, `"C:\Program Files\Vim\gvim.exe"
     --nofork`.  The order of preference is the `$GIT_EDITOR`
     environment variable, then `core.editor` configuration, then
-    `$VISUAL`, then `$EDITOR`, and then finally 'vi'.
+    `$VISUAL`, then `$EDITOR`, and then finally a hardcoded fallback
+    editor set at build time, by default 'vi'.
 
 GIT_PAGER::
     Text viewer for use by git commands (e.g., 'less').  The value

The other changes were fully accepted upstream, this one was rejected. So I modified it to Debian's scenario and filled the bug in BTS.

Since this is meant for Debian, no need to be generic about the "fallback editor set at build time": Debian uses 'editor', so 'editor' should be explicitly mentioned to correctly reflect git's behavior on a Debian system.

@Junio, I'm really sorry for indirectly bringing this up twice to your attention. I've never expected Debian maitainers to be so resposinve, it was awesome fast by reading, analysing and forwarding upstream in a matter of hours. I'm impressed (and embarasssed by this confusion)

MestreLion