Re: git-diff: --ignore-matching-lines has no effect on the output when --name-only is used

From: Lidong Yan <yldhome2d2@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 24, 2025, 01:56 UTC
Message-ID: <23DF2497-D379-4EAD-9271-D01D7D8F3E8B@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <xmqqqzy6omul.fsf@gitster.g>

Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com> write:

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> 
> Lidong Yan <yldhome2d2@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> The `—ignore-matching-lines` options is introduced in 296d4a94e72
>> (Michał Kępień 2020-10-20 08:48:09 +0200 5803) Since the Git documentation
> 
> WTH is that reference format?

Sorry. I should use `git log --format="%h (%s, %ad)" --date=short -n 1 296d4a`.

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> 
> It is just --raw, --name-only, --name-status, and --checkdiff output
> formats that deliberately ignore content based ignore mechanisms.
> 
> And I do not think it would be a good change to have them follow
> "ignore" bits.  When asked "has this path been modified?"  "what are
> the before and after blob object names?" etc., it does not make sense
> for the answer to be different depending on the presense of -w or
> --ignore-matching options.
>

So the meaning of --ignore-matching-lines is: although the file has changed, I don't want to see its diff content — it's not that we consider the file unchanged just because the changes match the regular expression.

Thanks, Lidong