Improve documentation and comments regarding directory traversal API

diff --git a/Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt b/Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt
index d7795ed65777c18e648ba1b23b1b63330b78c9ce..981d3a8fc12cde403cd2d29c86a63b56ca3028b3 100644 (file)
--- a/Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-symbolic-ref.txt
@@ -7,7 +7,9 @@ git-symbolic-ref - Read and modify symbolic refs
 
 SYNOPSIS
 --------
-'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [-m <reason>] <name> [<ref>]
+[verse]
+'git symbolic-ref' [-m <reason>] <name> <ref>
+'git symbolic-ref' [-q] [--short] <name>
 
 DESCRIPTION
 -----------
@@ -32,6 +34,10 @@ OPTIONS
        symbolic ref but a detached HEAD; instead exit with
        non-zero status silently.
 
+--short::
+       When showing the value of <name> as a symbolic ref, try to shorten the
+       value, e.g. from `refs/heads/master` to `master`.
+
 -m::
        Update the reflog for <name> with <reason>.  This is valid only
        when creating or updating a symbolic ref.
@@ -42,12 +48,9 @@ In the past, `.git/HEAD` was a symbolic link pointing at
 `refs/heads/master`.  When we wanted to switch to another branch,
 we did `ln -sf refs/heads/newbranch .git/HEAD`, and when we wanted
 to find out which branch we are on, we did `readlink .git/HEAD`.
-This was fine, and internally that is what still happens by
-default, but on platforms that do not have working symlinks,
-or that do not have the `readlink(1)` command, this was a bit
-cumbersome.  On some platforms, `ln -sf` does not even work as
-advertised (horrors).  Therefore symbolic links are now deprecated
-and symbolic refs are used by default.
+But symbolic links are not entirely portable, so they are now
+deprecated and symbolic refs (as described above) are used by
+default.
 
 'git symbolic-ref' will exit with status 0 if the contents of the
 symbolic ref were printed correctly, with status 1 if the requested