Re: diff/Checking out by date specification

> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 12:24:03PM +1000, Toby Corkindale wrote:
> 
>> `man git-rev-parse` seems to indicate that one can look at the state of  
>> the repository by date (absolute or relative), and use this for diff or  
>> checkout, etc.
>> It includes examples such as "{yesterday}" and "{1979-02-26 18:30:00}".
> 
> It's a little bit more complex than that. The branch@{time} syntax means
> "what was in _my_ branch at that time". And if you just cloned, your
> branch doesn't go back very far.
> 
> If you want to say "find commits that happened before time T", you want
> --until or --since (or their aliases --before and --after).
> 
> Would the documentation patch below have helped with the confusion?

> 
> -- >8 --
> doc/rev-parse: clarify reflog vs --until for specifying revisions
> 
> The rev-parse manpage introduces the branch@{date} syntax,
> and mentions the reflog specifically. However, new users may
> not be familiar with the distinction between the reflog and
> the commit date, so let's help them out with a "you may be
> interested in --until" pointer.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Jeff King <peff@peff.net>
> ---
>  Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt |    5 ++++-
>  1 files changed, 4 insertions(+), 1 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
> index 9e273bc..59e95ad 100644
> --- a/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/git-rev-parse.txt
> @@ -184,7 +184,10 @@ blobs contained in a commit.
>    second ago\}' or '\{1979-02-26 18:30:00\}') to specify the value
>    of the ref at a prior point in time.  This suffix may only be
>    used immediately following a ref name and the ref must have an
> -  existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>).
> +  existing log ($GIT_DIR/logs/<ref>). Note that this looks up the state
> +  of your *local* ref at a given time; e.g., what was in your local
> +  `master` branch last week. If you want to look at commits made during
> +  certain times, see `--since` and `--until`.
>  
>  * A ref followed by the suffix '@' with an ordinal specification
>    enclosed in a brace pair (e.g. '\{1\}', '\{15\}') to specify