Re: Bug: manpage for `git ls-files` uses instead of

[Junio C Hamano]

Lily Ballard  writes:

> I haven’t checked any other commands that the glossary lists as
> taking pathspecs (except `git add`, which does properly list it as
> taking pathspecs), so I don’t know if any of the other commands
> incorrectly list themselves as taking files when they take
> pathspecs.

I do not offhand think of a command that only takes pathname,
including "ls-files".  New users would think "git cmd README" is
taking a single filename "README", and "ls-files" doc uses "file"
in a misguided attempt to be "newbie friendly", but it always has
used that "README" string as a pattern to match paths against.

Bug: manpage for `git ls-files` uses instead of

[Lily Ballard]

`git ls-files` takes zero or more s, but the manpage (and the `-h` 
output) lists it as taking zero or more s instead. This is confusing as 
 is documented in `man git` as a filename, without any magic. But a 
pathspec has a lot of special handling. The gitglossary entry for pathspec does 
say that `git ls-files` takes it, but nobody is going to know to look there in 
the first place if they look at `git ls-files` and see that it takes files. 

I haven’t checked any other commands that the glossary lists as taking 
pathspecs (except `git add`, which does properly list it as taking pathspecs), 
so I don’t know if any of the other commands incorrectly list themselves as 
taking files when they take pathspecs.

git version 2.19.1.

-Lily Ballard