Documentation/git-gc: explain --auto in description

[git.git] / Documentation / git-format-patch.txt

diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
index 5e6d5373ad595d58d2eac53e172099354ca55148..c9857a2d62e55edaf7e71c1a89ae09c8ae2423d2 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
@@ -34,13 +34,16 @@ There are two ways to specify which commits to operate on.
 
 2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING
    REVISIONS" section in gitlink:git-rev-parse[1]) means the
 
 2. Generic <revision range> expression (see "SPECIFYING
    REVISIONS" section in gitlink:git-rev-parse[1]) means the

-   commits in the specified range.  A single commit, when
-   interpreted as a <revision range> expression, means
-   "everything that leads to that commit", but that is taken as
-   the special case above.  If you want to format everything
-   since project inception to one commit, say "git format-patch
-   \--root <that-commit>", as showing the root commit as patch
-   requires \--root option anyway.
+   commits in the specified range.
+
+A single commit, when interpreted as a <revision range>
+expression, means "everything that leads to that commit", but
+if you write 'git format-patch <commit>', the previous rule
+applies to that command line and you do not get "everything
+since the beginning of the time".  If you want to format
+everything since project inception to one commit, say "git
+format-patch \--root <commit>" to make it clear that it is the
+latter case.

 
 By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
 first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as
 
 By default, each output file is numbered sequentially from 1, and uses the
 first line of the commit message (massaged for pathname safety) as