Re: [RFD] Strange patch formats (aka tricks with unified diffs)..

From: Martin Langhoff <martin.langhoff@gmail.com>
Date: Apr 13, 2007, 07:01 UTC
Message-ID: <46a038f90704130001u4161f309k7bb98bb4801ef04a@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <7v3b34hjdh.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On 4/13/07, Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net> wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> "Martin Langhoff" <martin.langhoff@gmail.com> writes:
>
> > On 4/13/07, Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org> wrote:
> >> Side-by-side would be more challenging.
> >
> > <wish>If someone gets started on side-by-side, I'd love to have
> > char-level diff colouring,...
> > icecream too.</wish>
>
> Is it different from the --color-words (whose implementation I
> happen to hate)?

Didn't know about --color-words (goes away, tests...) no, nothing like that. I don't like --color-words.

To see what I mean, try

   git-show v1.4.4:git-cvsserver.perl  > file1
   git-show v1.5.1:git-cvsserver.perl  > file2
   xxdiff file1 file2

Just press 'n' twice to get to the 2nd "hunk" and you'll see what I mean. Next is 'n', previous is 'p'. It's useful to visualise subtle differences, and to spot commonalities in large changes.

Some aspects of xxdiff UI are horrid but this feature... is great. Probably tries a scan for commonalities from the start and end of the line. And then perhaps from the middle or from each beginning of alpha char sequence.

cheers,