From: Junio C Hamano <junkio@cox.net>
Date: Sun, 01 May 2005 02:22:57 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH] Resurrect diff-tree-helper -R
Message-ID: <7vis231y7y.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0504301805300.2296@ppc970.osdl.org>

>>>>> "LT" == Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org> writes:

LT> Talking about the diffs, I'm beginning to hate those "mode" things.

Likewise.

LT> Not only do they screw up diffstat (big deal), but they are pointless, 
LT> since 99.9% of the time the mode stays the same.

Pointless, yes.  mode is not what screwing up diffstat but
comparing against /dev/null is, so it is not a reason to hate
mode, and my fingers learned to say diffstat -p1 already so it
is not a big deal anymore.

LT> Normal "patch" will just ignore the extra lines before the
LT> diff anyway, so it won't matter there.

LT> Comments?

I am 100% in agreement with you here.  The only reason I added
it was to match what Pasky does so that his cg-patch can eat its
output.  To me, pleasing cg-patch is far lower priority than
pleasing l-k developers, so your veto counts.

My JIT tools do not use that mode thing in the patch.  I apply a
patch between two commits (or trees) to the work tree by doing
something like this:

    GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=jit-diff-extract \
    jit-diff "$@" | {
        cd "${GIT_PROJECT_TOP}"
        sh
    }

Here jit-diff-extract is the gem that creates a small shell
script that patches the file and runs "chmod +x" or "chmod -x"
when necessary, and does git-update-cache for added or removed
files.  Its output would look something like this:

    patch -p1 <<\EOF
    --- /dev/null
    +++ fs/ext9/Makefile
    @@ ....
    EOF
    chmod -x 'fs/ext9/Makefile'
    git-update-cache --add --remove -- 'fs/ext9/Makefile'

Maybe I can make the default diff output just like the above?
As you say, normal patch would not look at those shell script
part at all anyway.