doc/cat-file: make synopsis and description less confusing

The DESCRIPTION's "first form" is actually the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 5th
form in SYNOPSIS, the "second form" is the 4th one.

Interestingly, this state of affairs was introduced in
97fe7250753b (cat-file docs: fix SYNOPSIS and "-h" output, 2021-12-28)
with the claim of "Now the two will match again." ("the two" being
DESCRIPTION and SYNOPSIS)...

The description also suffers from other correctness and clarity issues,
e.g., the "first form" paragraph discusses -p, -s and -t, but leaves out
-e, which is included in the corresponding SYNOPSIS section; the second
paragraph mentions <format>, which doesn't occur in SYNOPSIS at all, and
of the three batch options, really only describes the behavior of
--batch-check.  Also the mention of "drivers" seems an implementation
detail not adding much clarity in a short summary (and isn't expanded
upon in the rest of the man page, either).

Rather than trying to maintain one-to-one (or N-to-M) correspondence
between the DESCRIPTION and SYNOPSIS forms, creating duplication and
providing opportunities for error, shorten the former into a concise
summary describing the two general modes of operation: batch and
non-batch, leaving details to the subsequent manual sections.

While here, fix a grammar error in the description of -e and make the
following further minor improvements:

  NAME:
    shorten ("content or type and size" isn't the whole story; say
    "details" and leave the actual details to later sections)

  SYNOPSIS and --help:
    move the (--textconv | --filters) form before --batch, closer
    to the other non-batch forms

Signed-off-by: Štěpán Němec <stepnem@smrk.net>
Acked-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

diff --git a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
index 0e4936d182632fb3362376787efd7d633bd623d2..bd95a6c10a7d0b1ee16b619c4b546c8d9c0b0e13 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-cat-file.txt
@@ -3,8 +3,7 @@ git-cat-file(1)
 
 NAME
 ----
-git-cat-file - Provide content or type and size information for repository objects
-
+git-cat-file - Provide contents or details of repository objects
 
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
@@ -12,25 +11,24 @@ SYNOPSIS
 'git cat-file' <type> <object>
 'git cat-file' (-e | -p) <object>
 'git cat-file' (-t | -s) [--allow-unknown-type] <object>
+'git cat-file' (--textconv | --filters)
+            [<rev>:<path|tree-ish> | --path=<path|tree-ish> <rev>]
 'git cat-file' (--batch | --batch-check | --batch-command) [--batch-all-objects]
             [--buffer] [--follow-symlinks] [--unordered]
             [--textconv | --filters] [-Z]
-'git cat-file' (--textconv | --filters)
-            [<rev>:<path|tree-ish> | --path=<path|tree-ish> <rev>]
 
 DESCRIPTION
 -----------
-In its first form, the command provides the content or the type of an object in
-the repository. The type is required unless `-t` or `-p` is used to find the
-object type, or `-s` is used to find the object size, or `--textconv` or
-`--filters` is used (which imply type "blob").
-
-In the second form, a list of objects (separated by linefeeds) is provided on
-stdin, and the SHA-1, type, and size of each object is printed on stdout. The
-output format can be overridden using the optional `<format>` argument. If
-either `--textconv` or `--filters` was specified, the input is expected to
-list the object names followed by the path name, separated by a single
-whitespace, so that the appropriate drivers can be determined.
+Output the contents or other properties such as size, type or delta
+information of one or more objects.
+
+This command can operate in two modes, depending on whether an option
+from the `--batch` family is specified.
+
+In non-batch mode, the command provides information on an object
+named on the command line.
+
+In batch mode, arguments are read from standard input.
 
 OPTIONS
 -------
@@ -51,8 +49,8 @@ OPTIONS
 
 -e::
        Exit with zero status if `<object>` exists and is a valid
-       object. If `<object>` is of an invalid format exit with non-zero and
-       emits an error on stderr.
+       object. If `<object>` is of an invalid format, exit with non-zero
+       status and emit an error on stderr.
 
 -p::
        Pretty-print the contents of `<object>` based on its type.

diff --git a/builtin/cat-file.c b/builtin/cat-file.c
index 694c8538df2ff8200e214351e5e857530d2a1191..ea8ad601ecc0b7ee2d7eb9c3da2bb70bcfc55cf8 100644 (file)
--- a/builtin/cat-file.c
+++ b/builtin/cat-file.c
@@ -922,11 +922,11 @@ int cmd_cat_file(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
                N_("git cat-file <type> <object>"),
                N_("git cat-file (-e | -p) <object>"),
                N_("git cat-file (-t | -s) [--allow-unknown-type] <object>"),
+               N_("git cat-file (--textconv | --filters)\n"
+                  "             [<rev>:<path|tree-ish> | --path=<path|tree-ish> <rev>]"),
                N_("git cat-file (--batch | --batch-check | --batch-command) [--batch-all-objects]\n"
                   "             [--buffer] [--follow-symlinks] [--unordered]\n"
                   "             [--textconv | --filters] [-Z]"),
-               N_("git cat-file (--textconv | --filters)\n"
-                  "             [<rev>:<path|tree-ish> | --path=<path|tree-ish> <rev>]"),
                NULL
        };
        const struct option options[] = {