Re: log -S/-G (aka pickaxe) searches binary files by default

From: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
Date: Mar 3, 2017, 05:17 UTC
Message-ID: <20170303051721.r6pahs4vjtqqoevc@sigill.intra.peff.net>
In-Reply-To: <CAPc5daVSY5Z_+cpT1dHY-cM-TzNeu+Vzv+zouoOHW08PTFRQ7A@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Mar 02, 2017 at 05:36:17PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:

Show 16 quoted lines

> On Thu, Mar 2, 2017 at 4:52 PM, Thomas Braun
> <thomas.braun@virtuell-zuhause.de> wrote:
> >
> > I happen to have quite large binary files in my repos.
> >
> > Today I realized that a line like
> > git log -G a
> > searches also files found to be binary (or explicitly marked as binary).
> >
> > Is that on purpose?
> 
> No, it's a mere oversight (as I do not think I never even thought
> about special casing binary
> files from day one, it is unlikely that you would find _any_ old
> version of Git that behaves
> differently).

The email focuses on "-G", and I think it is wrong to look in binary files there, as "grep in diff" does not make sense for a binary file that we would refuse to diff.

But the subject also mentions "-S". I always assumed it was intentional to look in binary files there, as it is searching for a pure byte sequence. I would not mind an option to disable that, but I think the default should remain on.

-Peff