Re: [PATCH] make commit message a little more consistent and conforting

From: Shawn Pearce <spearce@spearce.org>
Date: Dec 15, 2006, 15:40 UTC
Message-ID: <20061215154025.GF17860@spearce.org>
In-Reply-To: <4582C022.3030706@op5.se>

Andreas Ericsson <ae@op5.se> wrote:

Show 9 quoted lines

> Yes, but it makes sense for merges where you generally pull someone 
> elses work or one of your topic branches because it gives a general feel 
> for the amount of modifications and are a sort of conclusion. Commits 
> are a different thing, because you should know what kind of changes 
> you've just done. If you don't you have other problems. I for one run 
> git diff quite frequently when I'm getting close to a commit to make 
> sure I don't get only the changes I want. I imagine others do too, so 
> getting a diffstat when issuing the actual commit would just be noisy 
> and irritating.

I do the same (diff a lot before commit) and thus find commit outputting anything at all to be noisy and irritating. Frankly the new

  git-diff-tree --summary --root --no-commit-id HEAD

that Junio put on the end is already irritating.

But it was added to help users verify that commit did what they thought it would (see 61f5cb7f). By the same token sometimes users accidentally commit files they didn't mean to, or forget to include files they meant to include. Showing a diffstat would also be a final sanity check for them.