Re: [PATCH] Make words boundary for --color-words configurable

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 2, 2008, 03:54 UTC
Message-ID: <7vprs5xsvi.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org>
In-Reply-To: <1209699564-2800-1-git-send-email-pkufranky@gmail.com>

Ping Yin <pkufranky@gmail.com> writes:

Show 17 quoted lines

> Previously --color-words only allow spaces as words boundary. However,
> just space is not enough. For example, when i rename a function from
> foo to bar, following example doesn't show as expected when using
> --color-words.
>
> ------------------
> - if (foo(arg))
> + if (bar(arg))
> ------------------
>
> It shows as "if <r>(foo(arg))</r><g>(foo(arg))</g>". Actually, it's the
> best to show as "if (<r>foo</r><g>bar</g>(arg))". Here "r" and "g"
> represent "red" and "green" separately.
>
> This patch introduces a configuration diff.wordsboundary to make
> --color-words treat both spaces and characters in diff.wordsboundary as
> boundary characters.

Just an idle thought.

I suspect a more natural definition of word boundary is between a run of word characters and a run of non-word characters. IOW, instead of saying " " and "(these other)" characters are boundary, you would say

	if (foo(arg))

between f and space, open paren and f, second o and open paren, that open paren and a, ... are boundaries.

If you go that route, you would make the definition of "what is the set of word characters" configurable.