Make "git help" sort git commands in columns

Linus Torvalds · Junio C Hamano · commit 112d0bafd620 · 2005-12-18T13:53:40.000-08:00
This changes "pretty_print_string_list()" to show the git commands
alphabetically in column order, which is the normal one.

Ie instead of doing

	git commands available in '/home/torvalds/bin'
	----------------------------------------------
	  add                am                 ...
	  applypatch         archimport         ...
	  cat-file           check-ref-format   ...
	...

it does

	git commands available in '/home/torvalds/bin'
	----------------------------------------------
	  add                diff-tree          ...
	  am                 fetch              ...
	  apply              fetch-pack         ...
	...

where each column is sorted.

This is how "ls" sorts things too, and since visually the columns are much
more distinct than the rows, so it _looks_ more sorted.

The "ls" command has a "-x" option that lists entries by lines (the way
git.c used to): if somebody wants to do that, the new print-out logic
could be easily accomodated to that too. Matter of taste and preference, I
guess.

Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds &lt;torvalds@osdl.org&gt;
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano &lt;junkio@cox.net&gt;
diff --git a/git.c b/git.c
@@ -85,25 +85,28 @@ static int cmdname_compare(const void *a_, const void *b_)
 
 static void pretty_print_string_list(struct cmdname **cmdname, int longest)
 {
-	int cols = 1;
+	int cols = 1, rows;
 	int space = longest + 1; /* min 1 SP between words */
 	int max_cols = term_columns() - 1; /* don't print *on* the edge */
-	int i;
+	int i, j;
 
 	if (space < max_cols)
 		cols = max_cols / space;
+	rows = (cmdname_cnt + cols - 1) / cols;
 
 	qsort(cmdname, cmdname_cnt, sizeof(*cmdname), cmdname_compare);
 
-	for (i = 0; i < cmdname_cnt; ) {
-		int c;
+	for (i = 0; i < rows; i++) {
 		printf("  ");
 
-		for (c = cols; c && i < cmdname_cnt; i++) {
-			printf("%s", cmdname[i]->name);
-
-			if (--c)
-				mput_char(' ', space - cmdname[i]->len);
+		for (j = 0; j < cols; j++) {
+			int n = j * rows + i;
+			int size = space;
+			if (n >= cmdname_cnt)
+				break;
+			if (j == cols-1 || n + rows >= cmdname_cnt)
+				size = 1;
+			printf("%-*s", size, cmdname[n]->name);
 		}
 		putchar('\n');
 	}
