- Say what the error is first ("cannot open %s", not "%s: cannot open")
+Externally Visible Names
+
+ - For configuration variable names, follow the existing convention:
+
+ . The section name indicates the affected subsystem.
+
+ . The subsection name, if any, indicates which of an unbounded set
+ of things to set the value for.
+
+ . The variable name describes the effect of tweaking this knob.
+
+ The section and variable names that consist of multiple words are
+ formed by concatenating the words without punctuations (e.g. `-`),
+ and are broken using bumpyCaps in documentation as a hint to the
+ reader.
+
+ When choosing the variable namespace, do not use variable name for
+ specifying possibly unbounded set of things, most notably anything
+ an end user can freely come up with (e.g. branch names). Instead,
+ use subsection names or variable values, like the existing variable
+ branch.<name>.description does.
+
+
Writing Documentation:
Most (if not all) of the documentation pages are written in the
--sort=<key>
--abbrev[=<n>]
+ If a placeholder has multiple words, they are separated by dashes:
+ <new-branch-name>
+ --template=<template-directory>
+
Possibility of multiple occurrences is indicated by three dots:
<file>...
(One or more of <file>.)
(Zero or more of <patch>. Note that the dots are inside, not
outside the brackets.)
- Multiple alternatives are indicated with vertical bar:
+ Multiple alternatives are indicated with vertical bars:
[-q | --quiet]
[--utf8 | --no-utf8]
Parentheses are used for grouping:
- [(<rev>|<range>)...]
+ [(<rev> | <range>)...]
(Any number of either <rev> or <range>. Parens are needed to make
it clear that "..." pertains to both <rev> and <range>.)