Re: 'show' pretty %B without a diff

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Dec 20, 2010, 18:05 UTC
Message-ID: <7v4oa8cobn.fsf@alter.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <20101220111214.GD10354@external.screwed.box>

Peter Vereshagin <peter@vereshagin.org> writes:

> JCH> Especially if you are doing a script, you probably should be using
> JCH> "cat-file commit" anyway, no?
>
> cat-file doesn't seem to support formatting option?

That is exactly why I suggested "cat-file", as you are scripting. We reserve the right to change the human-visible formatting output from Porcelain commands like "show" any time to make it "prettier" (we may start coloring strings that look like object names in the commit log message in "git show" output, for example), while giving scripts more stable output through the plumbing commands like "cat-file" so that they can parse and process without having to worry about the output format changing under them.

If your script is _not_ parsing the git command output, but is just blindly spewing it out to the invoking user, it is Ok to use "show", though. Check "-s" option to the "show" command in that case.