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Re: git cherry-pick feature request

From
Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date
Aug 24, 2006, 07:36 UTC
Message-ID
<7vhd02bn64.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To
<17644.21269.128308.313284@cargo.ozlabs.ibm.com>
Paul Mackerras <paulus@samba.org> writes:
Show 9 quoted lines
> While I'm asking for features, another one that would be really useful
> for another tool I'm writing is a 3-way diff for a file between the
> working directory, the index, and the current head commit, something
> like what git diff-tree -c does for merges.  That is, it would have
> two columns of +/-/space characters, one for the current head and one
> for the index.  A '-' would indicate that the line appears in the
> current head or the index but not in the version of the file in the
> working directory.  A '+' would indicate that the line appears in the
> working directory version.

The combined diff (-c and --cc) comparison works by comparing a single post-image (merge result) with multiple pre-images, so I think it is reasonable to compare the working tree files as the post-image and cached and HEAD-tree versions as the preimages.

I am not sure how useful this would be though -- I am guessing that in most people's workflow the index and the HEAD would exactly match most of the time, since that is the way Linus encourages (and I follow that myself). So for that extreme use case, the difference between "diff-index HEAD" and the proposed command (I am thinking about calling it git-diff-status) would be that the latter always has two plus or minus signs instead of one, and lines with a single plus or minus would be an indication that HEAD and index have drifted. In other words, the largest benefit of "combined diff" which is to simplify trivial "The result took this one not that one wholesale" differences would not be felt.

I have to visualize the result a bit before coding this.
Previous: Junio C HamanoNext: Paul Mackerras
Message 6 of 7 in “git cherry-pick feature request”
  1. Paul MackerrasAug 23, 2006
  2. Junio C HamanoAug 23, 2006
  3. Paul MackerrasAug 23, 2006
  4. Jeff KingAug 23, 2006
  5. Junio C HamanoAug 24, 2006
  6. Junio C HamanoAug 24, 2006
  7. Paul MackerrasAug 24, 2006

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