doc: give some guidelines for error messages

Clarify error message puntuation to reduce review workload. Signed-off-by: Philip Oakley <[email protected]> Helped-by: Jeff King <[email protected]> Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <[email protected]>
rae · Jul 10, 2014 · 0ae0e88 · 0ae0e88
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commit 0ae0e88
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diff --git a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
@@ -264,6 +264,15 @@ For Python scripts:
    documentation for version 2.6 does not mention this prefix, it has
    been supported since version 2.6.0.
 
+Error Messages
+
+ - Do not end error messages with a full stop.
+
+ - Do not capitalize ("unable to open %s", not "Unable to open %s")
+
+ - Say what the error is first ("cannot open %s", not "%s: cannot open")
+
+
 Writing Documentation:
 
  Most (if not all) of the documentation pages are written in the