From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:18:51 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 3/3] merge-recursive: don't detect renames from empty files
Message-ID: <20120322191851.GA23293@burratino>
In-Reply-To: <20120322185349.GC32727@sigill.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King wrote:

> We could do the same thing for general diff rename
> detection. However, the stakes are much less high there, as
> we are explicitly reporting the rename to the user. It's
> only the automatic nature of merge-recursive that makes the
> result confusing. So there's not as much need for caution
> when just showing a diff.

The stakes may be different, but doesn't the same justification apply
anyway?  If "git diff -M" chooses a random pairing to describe a
renaming of multiple empty files, that seems just as confusing as
merge-recursive making the same mistake.

If adding this check in diffcore is more complicated, doing it in
merge-recursive for now seems fine and prudent, but if we are doing it
at the merge-recursive level just to be conservative then that seems
like the wrong layer.

Thanks for a clean and pleasant patch.
Jonathan