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Re: PATCH: client shows help instead of certain specific error messages

From: Robert Pluim <rpluim_at_bigfoot.com>
Date: 2003-04-09 18:55:38 CEST

Brian Denny writes:
> On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 12:30:21AM +0100, Julian Foad wrote:
> >
> > This is what it wanted to display (the code in diff-cmd.c sets up this
> > error message):
> >
> > >~/src/subversion> svn diff http://any.url/
> > >subversion/clients/cmdline/diff-cmd.c:92: (apr_err=205000)
> > >svn: Client error in parsing arguments
> > >svn: Second URL is required.
>
> hm, i wonder whether we should still show the help anyway. on the one
> hand, usually after i get an option-parsing error (with any program) the
> first think i'll want to do is look up the correct usage. on the other
> hand, i can always type 'svn help diff' myself.
>
> of the top of my head i might lean towards printing the specific error
> message, *followed by* the help. but i don't have strong feelings about
> it.

Normally I'd agree with this, but the help output for svn diff is,
uhhm, "substantial" is probably the best word. That doesn't matter on
my super-duper 500x80 terminal, of course, but not everyone is so
blessed :-) How about something to make the error message stand out
visually from the help, eg:

~/src/subversion> svn diff http://any.url/
---------------------------------------------------------
 subversion/clients/cmdline/diff-cmd.c:92: (apr_err=205000)
 svn: Client error in parsing arguments
 svn: Second URL is required.
---------------------------------------------------------
diff (di): display the differences between two paths.
usage: 1. diff [-r N[:M]] [TARGET [TARGET ... ]]

Alternatively, we could output the usage message first, and then the
specific error message. On balance I think I'd prefer that.

> bikeshed, anyone?

I'm partial to purple, myself. With yellow polka dots. Goes with my
socks.

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Received on Wed Apr 9 19:21:44 2003

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