Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 3/3] Capitalization and punctuation fixes to some user visible messages

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 11:57:09 -0700

Oswald Buddenhagen <[email-masked]> writes:

> These are conscious violations of the usual rules for error messages,
> based on this reasoning:
> - If an error message is directly followed by another sentence, it needs
>   to be properly terminated with a period, lest the grammar looks broken
>   and becomes hard to read.
> - That second sentence isn't actually an error message any more, so it
>   should abide to conventional language rules for good looks and
>   legibility. Arguably, these should be converted to advice messages
>   (which the user can squelch, too), but that's a much bigger effort to
>   get right.

I think both of the above are good guidelines to follow, with a hint
for a longer-term plan.  Good description.

> - Neither of these apply to the first hunk in do_exec(), but this
>   two-line message looks just too much like a real sentence to not
>   terminate it. Also, leaving it alone would make it asymmetrical to
>   the other hunk.

I do not have a strong opinion on this one, in the sense that if
somebody writes a patch to terminate the sentence with the above
justification, I do not think I would object to it, and if somebody
omits this change from a patch like this, because the above two
guidelines do not apply to it, I would not object to it, either.

> Signed-off-by: Oswald Buddenhagen <[email-masked]>
> Cc: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>

We generally do not want Cc: in the trailers.  Can you move them
after the three-dash lines (which I think is still read by
send-email) next time you create more patches and throw them at the
list?

Will queue.

> ---
> v2:
> - tried to make commit message more convincing
> - put it last in the series, to make the less controversial changes
>   easier to apply
> ---
>  builtin/pull.c | 2 +-
>  sequencer.c    | 4 ++--
>  2 files changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/builtin/pull.c b/builtin/pull.c
> index 56f679d94a..bb2ddc93ab 100644
> --- a/builtin/pull.c
> +++ b/builtin/pull.c
> @@ -1044,7 +1044,7 @@ int cmd_pull(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
>  		if (!opt_autostash)
>  			require_clean_work_tree(the_repository,
>  				N_("pull with rebase"),
> -				_("please commit or stash them."), 1, 0);
> +				_("Please commit or stash them."), 1, 0);
>  
>  		if (get_rebase_fork_point(&rebase_fork_point, repo, *refspecs))
>  			oidclr(&rebase_fork_point);
> diff --git a/sequencer.c b/sequencer.c
> index 0677c9ab09..21748bbfb0 100644
> --- a/sequencer.c
> +++ b/sequencer.c
> @@ -3629,13 +3629,13 @@ static int do_exec(struct repository *r, const char *command_line)
>  			  "\n"),
>  			command_line,
>  			dirty ? _("and made changes to the index and/or the "
> -				"working tree\n") : "");
> +				"working tree.\n") : "");
>  		if (status == 127)
>  			/* command not found */
>  			status = 1;
>  	} else if (dirty) {
>  		warning(_("execution succeeded: %s\nbut "
> -			  "left changes to the index and/or the working tree\n"
> +			  "left changes to the index and/or the working tree.\n"
>  			  "Commit or stash your changes, and then run\n"
>  			  "\n"
>  			  "  git rebase --continue\n"