Subject: Re: git alias and --help

From: Gelonida N <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2011 02:24:07 +0200

On 10/28/2011 12:50 AM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]> writes:
> 
>> Gelonida N <[email-masked]> writes:
>>
>>> Is there any trick to get the help text of git branch without
>>> having to type
>>>
>>> git branch --help
>>
>> How about "git help branch"?
> 
> It was bad of me to write a tongue-in-cheek answer, get distracted and
> ended up sending it without the real answer.
No issues. At least I got an answer :-)
> 
> The reason why we do not do what you seem to be suggesting is because
> giving the same behaviour to "git b --help" as "git branch --help" is
> wrong.
> 
> To see why, imagine you have configured an alias that is not a simple and
> stupid substitution "b == branch", but something like "bt == branch -t",
> and then want to know what you should write after "git bt".  Giving the
> manpage for branch without giving them any hint that they configured that
> alias to produce customized behaviour that is different from plain vanilla
> "branch" is not quite acceptable.
> 
> I think you _could_ make a patch that special cases a simple and straight
> substitution and skip the "foo is aliased to bar" step, but I doubt it is
> worth it to lose consistency between "git b --help" vs "git bt --help"
> that way.

I understand the reasoning and agree, that as general case it might not
be a good idea to have the behaviour, taht I expected to be the default
behaviour

It's just, that I am lazy so I shortened  my most common commands

For example:
co=checkout
ci=commit
b=branch
sm=submodule

However I'm not smart enough to remember all options for all commands
and so I have to ask git for occasional help.

It feels so 'unlazy' to have to type the full command 'just' to get help

What I wondered though is whether there couldn't be a way to be lazy and
avoid confusion.

1.) prompt for full help
-------------------------

One option would be to display what the command is aliased to and to
prompt whether one wants to see the full help of the base command.

`git b' is aliased to `branch'
pleaset press h if you want to see the full help for git branch
or press q to quit

2.) allow copy paste by displaying the command to be typed for help.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
display sometihing like:

`git b' is aliased to `branch'
for help about the branch command type:  git --help

Then lazy people could copy paste the command instead of typing it.

3.) special alias syntax to allow 'forwarding' of --help
------------------------------------------------------------

some kind of special alias syntax, which explicitely forces that --help
is 'forwarded' to the alias and not treated by git

example:

b = branch   # --help would have the current behaviour

I tried following to see whether '--help' is now being 'forwarded'

b = ! git branch
but also  here --help is treated by git

A possibility could be another 'special' character. For the sake of the
example I used '?'
b = ?branch # 'the question mark would allow 'forwarding' the
             # --help option to the alias'

b = ?! git branch

My workaround
------------

Fort the time being I might do something like

bhlp = branch --help

I would have prefered b_hlp or b_h, but it seems underscore isn't
allowed in an alias.