Re: git-difftool

From: David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 31, 2008, 20:11 UTC
Message-ID: <402731c90812311211p548c49d3p100f79ddee7163b0@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <vpqhc4kz5zh.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 8:04 AM, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@imag.fr> wrote:

Show 19 quoted lines

> David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The usual use case for this script is when you have either
>> staged or unstaged changes and you'd like to see the changes
>> in a side-by-side diff viewer (e.g. xxdiff, tkdiff, etc).
>>
>>       git difftool [<filename>*]
>
> Is it not a complex way of saying
>
>        GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=xxdiff git diff
>
> ?
>
> (My 2 cents, and happy new year ;-)
>
> --
> Matthieu
>

Hmm... in theory, yes, but in practice, no. xxdiff is too gimp to handle what 'git diff' hands it =)

For example:

$ GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=echo git diff test test /tmp/.diff_1dh4TW 9daeafb9864cf43055ae93beb0afd6c7d144bfa4 100644 test 0000

$ GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=xxdiff git diff test xxdiff (cmdline.cpp:762): You can specify at most 3 filenames. Extra arguments: " 100644 test 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 100644" Use 'xxdiff --help' for more information. external diff died, stopping at test.

I checked the git-diff documentation and could not find a way to inhibit the sha1, mode, etc. args that are sent to GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF (nor should there be, I presume).

I'm all for finding the simplest way and GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF seems like the right entry point. What I should do is change the script so that it handles all of the choosing-a-merge-tool-logic and just have git call it via GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF. That would definitely simplify the script since 'git diff' would be handling all of the tmp file and option processing logic. wow, I really like that idea. Thanks for the tip!

Happy new year,

-- 
    David