format-patch documentation: reword to hint "--root <one-commit>" more clearly
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
diff --git a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
index 5e6d537..c9857a2 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-format-patch.txt
@@ -34,13 +34,16 @@
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
