Subject: Re: [PATCH v2 2/2] merge/pull: extend merge.stat configuration variable to cover --compact-summary

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2025 09:38:30 -0700

"Kristoffer Haugsbakk" <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Fri, Jun 13, 2025, at 00:25, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>> Extend it to be "Boolean or text", that takes false, true, or
>> "compact", with the last one triggering the --compact-summary
>> option introduced earlier.
>
> Would it make sense to make `diffstat` an alias for `true`?  I’m not
> sure since you need to keep `true` anyway so you still have that
> historical artifact (?)[1] of `true` meaning `diffstat`.

Correct.  But people can bikeshed about adding such synonyms later
without breaking existing users, so I would not consider such a
tweak for the initial version.

> There’s also several places in this doc which uses something similar
> judging by a search for “defaults to”.  Only exception is
> `merge.renameLimit`:
>
>     If not specified, defaults to

Having something before "Defaults to X" (like "if left unspecified"
etc.) may not be logically and technically needed, as that is the
definion of what the "default" is.

Having said that, I somehow find the resulting sentence easier to
read with such an introducer, but perhaps it is just me.

Among the output of

    $ git grep -E -i ', default' Documentation/

we already have quite a few of them.

Thanks.

Documentation/config/commitgraph.adoc:repository, defaulting to 1 if there are none.
Documentation/config/merge.adoc:	rename detection during a merge.  If not specified, defaults
Documentation/fetch-options.adoc:is set (see linkgit:git-config[1]), defaulting to 'on-demand' if unset.
Documentation/git-init.adoc:The option can have the following values, defaulting to `group` if no value
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:value; if that is unspecified, default to `auto`.
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:	value; if that is unspecified, default to --signed-off-by-cc.
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:	configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to --no-cc-cover.
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:	configuration value; if that is unspecified, default to --no-to-cover.
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:that is unspecified, default to 'self' if --suppress-from is
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:	value; if that is unspecified, default to --no-suppress-from.
Documentation/git-send-email.adoc:is unspecified, default to 'auto' unless any of the suppress options