inconsistent order of --diff-algorithm variants in man pages
- From
- Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net>
- Date
- Jun 8, 2026, 11:26 UTC
- Message-ID
- <20260608112656.GI1082778@cventin.lip.ens-lyon.fr>
In Documentation/diff-algorithm-option.adoc, which is used by the git-blame(1) and git-diff(1) man pages:
`--diff-algorithm=(patience|minimal|histogram|myers)`::
Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows:
+
--
`default`;;
`myers`;;
The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default.
`minimal`;;
Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is
produced.
`patience`;;
Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches.
`histogram`;;
This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support
low-occurrence common elements".
--I think that using the same order in the --diff-algorithm line and in the description that follows would be better, i.e.
--diff-algorithm=(myers|minimal|patience|histogram)
FYI, the text was added in 07924d4d50e5304fb53eb60aaba8aef31d4c4e5e in 2013, but without any explanation on this difference.
-- Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/> 100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/> Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Pascaline project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)