1 files changed, 20 insertions, 5 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/config/alias.txt b/Documentation/config/alias.txt
index 01df96fab3..2c5db0ad84 100644
--- a/Documentation/config/alias.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config/alias.txt
@@ -21,8 +21,23 @@ If the alias expansion is prefixed with an exclamation point,
 it will be treated as a shell command.  For example, defining
 `alias.new = !gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD`, the invocation
 `git new` is equivalent to running the shell command
-`gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD`.  Note that shell commands will be
-executed from the top-level directory of a repository, which may
-not necessarily be the current directory.
-`GIT_PREFIX` is set as returned by running `git rev-parse --show-prefix`
-from the original current directory. See linkgit:git-rev-parse[1].
+`gitk --all --not ORIG_HEAD`.  Note:
++
+* Shell commands will be executed from the top-level directory of a
+  repository, which may not necessarily be the current directory.
+* `GIT_PREFIX` is set as returned by running `git rev-parse --show-prefix`
+  from the original current directory. See linkgit:git-rev-parse[1].
+* Shell command aliases always receive any extra arguments provided to
+  the Git command-line as positional arguments.
+** Care should be taken if your shell alias is a "one-liner" script
+   with multiple commands (e.g. in a pipeline), references multiple
+   arguments, or is otherwise not able to handle positional arguments
+   added at the end.  For example: `alias.cmd = "!echo $1 | grep $2"`
+   called as `git cmd 1 2` will be executed as 'echo $1 | grep $2
+   1 2', which is not what you want.
+** A convenient way to deal with this is to write your script
+   operations in an inline function that is then called with any
+   arguments from the command-line.  For example `alias.cmd = "!c() {
+   echo $1 | grep $2 ; }; c" will correctly execute the prior example.
+** Setting `GIT_TRACE=1` can help you debug the command being run for
+   your alias.