The placeholder markup is underscore (_), not backtick (`) as well.
The inline-verbatim markup (backticks) handle interior formatting. This
means in this case that it applies HTML `<code>` to the underscores and
`<em>` to the placeholder.
That is the effect, anyway; we can see from the rest of 042d6f34 (doc:
git-checkout: clarify `-b` and `-B`, 2025-09-10) that this was probably
an unintended mix-up.
Acked-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Kristoffer Haugsbakk <code@khaugsbakk.name>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback on this section: 3 users don't know what "tree-ish"
means and 3 users don't know what "pathspec" means. One user also says
that the section is very confusing and that they don't understand what
the "index" is.
From conversations on Mastodon, several users said that their impression
is that "the index" means the same thing as "HEAD". It would be good to
give those users (and other users who do not know what "index" means) a
hint as to its meaning.
Make this section more accessible to users who don't know what the terms
"pathspec", "tree-ish", and "index" mean by using more familiar language,
adding examples, and using simpler sentence structures.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback: one user mentioned that "When the <tree-ish> (most
often a commit) is not given" is confusing since it starts with a
negative.
Restructuring so that `git checkout main file.txt` and
`git checkout file.txt` are separate items will help us simplify the
sentence structure a lot.
As a bonus, it appears that `-f` actually only applies to one of those
forms, so we can include fewer options, and now the structure of the
DESCRIPTION matches the SYNOPSIS.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback: several users say they don't understand the use case
for `--detach`. It's probably not realistic to explain the use case for
detached HEAD state here, but we can improve the situation.
Explain how `git checkout --detach` is different from
`git checkout <branch>` instead of copying over the description from
`git checkout <branch>`, since `git checkout <branch>` will be a
familiar command to many readers.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback: several users reported having trouble understanding
the difference between `-b` and `-B` ("I think it's because my brain
expects it to contrast with `-b`, but instead it starts off explaining
how they're the same").
Also, in `-B`, 2 users can't tell what the branch is reset *to*.
Simplify the sentence structure in the explanations of `-b` and `-B` and
add a little extra information (what `<start-point>` is, what the branch
is reset to).
Splitting up `-b` and `-B` into separate items helps simplify the
sentence structure since there's less "In this case...".
Replace the long "the branch is not reset/created unless "git checkout"
is successful..." with just "will fail", since we should generally
assume that Git will fail operations in a clean way and not leave
operations half-finished, and that cases where it does not fail cleanly
are the exceptions that the documentation should flag.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback: several users commented that "Local modifications
to the files in the working tree are kept, so that they can be committed
to the <branch>." didn't seem accurate to them, since
`git checkout <branch>` will often fail.
One user also thought that "... and by pointing HEAD at the branch"
was something that _they_ had to do somehow ("How do I point HEAD at
a branch?") rather than a description of what the `git checkout`
operation is doing for them.
Explain when `git checkout <branch>` will fail and clarify that
"pointing HEAD at the branch" is part of what the command does.
6 users commented that the "You could omit <branch>..." section is
extremely confusing. Explain this in a much more direct way.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
There's no need to use the terms "pathspec" or "tree-ish" in the
ARGUMENT DISAMBIGUATION section, which are terms that (from user
feedback on this page) many users do not understand.
"tree-ish" is actually not accurate here: `git checkout` in this case
takes a commit-ish, not a tree-ish. So we can say "branch or commit"
instead of "tree-ish" which is both more accurate and uses more familiar
terms.
And now that the intro to the man pages mentions that `git checkout` has
"two main modes", it makes sense to refer to this disambiguation section
to understand how Git decides which one to use when there's an overlap
in syntax.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
From user feedback: in the first paragraph, 5 users reported not
understanding the terms "pathspec" and 1 user reported not understanding
the term "HEAD". Of the users who said they didn't know what "pathspec"
means, 3 said they couldn't understand what the paragraph was trying to
communicate as a result.
One user also commented that "If no pathspec was given..." makes
`git checkout <branch>` sounds like a special edge case, instead of
being one of the most common ways to use this core Git command.
It looks like the goal of this paragraph is to communicate that `git
checkout` has two different modes: one where you switch branches and one
where you just update your working directory files/index. So say that
directly, and use more familiar language (including examples) to say it.
Signed-off-by: Julia Evans <julia@jvns.ca>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
When switching manpages to the synopsis style, the description lists of
options need to be switched to inline synopsis for proper formatting. This
is done by enclosing the option name in double backticks, e.g. `--option`.
Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
This patch compliments the previous commit, where builtins that use
add-patch infrastructure now respect diff.context and
diff.interHunkContext file configurations.
In particular, this patch helps users who don't want to set persistent
context configurations or just want a way to override them on a one-time
basis, by allowing the relevant builtins to accept corresponding command
line options that override the file configurations.
This mimics commands such as diff and log, which allow for both context
file configuration and command line overrides.
Signed-off-by: Leon Michalak <leonmichalak6@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
- Switch the synopsis to a synopsis block which will automatically
format placeholders in italics and keywords in monospace
- Use _<placeholder>_ instead of <placeholder> in the description
- Use `backticks` for keywords and more complex option
descriptions. The new rendering engine will apply synopsis rules to
these spans.
Signed-off-by: Jean-Noël Avila <jn.avila@free.fr>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
We presently use the ".txt" extension for our AsciiDoc files. While not
wrong, most editors do not associate this extension with AsciiDoc,
meaning that contributors don't get automatic editor functionality that
could be useful, such as syntax highlighting and prose linting.
It is much more common to use the ".adoc" extension for AsciiDoc files,
since this helps editors automatically detect files and also allows
various forges to provide rich (HTML-like) rendering. Let's do that
here, renaming all of the files and updating the includes where
relevant. Adjust the various build scripts and makefiles to use the new
extension as well.
Note that this should not result in any user-visible changes to the
documentation.
Signed-off-by: brian m. carlson <sandals@crustytoothpaste.net>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Kristoffer Haugsbakk