Re: Highly inconsistent diff UI

From: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 24, 2013, 16:40 UTC
Message-ID: <20130424164003.GB4119@elie.Belkin>
In-Reply-To: <CALkWK0n2ZZTgYxi3Fk2UxY8TXFAt1Xt3+11G98GKxbYdoMOT+Q@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Ramkumar Ramachandra wrote:

>                    A..B and A...B do not correspond to the meaning
> specified in gitrevisions.txt.  There's a note in the documentation
> saying this, but I'm very unhappy.

What would it mean for A..B to be treated as a revision range?

Suppose I do a revision walk and come up with the commits x, y, and z. What is the resulting diff?

The common syntax is just a mnemonic: in the same situations as I might use "git log A...B", it can be handy to use "git diff A...B".

[...]

> What about other things like 'git diff ^A ^B' and 'git diff A^!'?  Why
> is diff so inconsistent with everything else?

"git diff ^A ^B" is invalid syntax. It's a bug that it doesn't complain.

"git diff A^!" is a very convenient shorthand for "git diff A^ A".

"diff" is fundamentally about comparing two endpoints. It is not a command for listing commits.

Hoping that clarifies, Jonathan