From: Junio C Hamano Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:58:02 GMT Subject: Re: [PATCH] Re-re-re-fix common tail optimization Message-ID: <7vsl218aqd.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> In-Reply-To: Johannes Schindelin writes: >> >> But as at least one released version of GNU diff has a pretty serious >> >> bug, >> >> I would rather not rely too much on diff. (BTW this was the reason I >> >> wanted --no-index so badly.) >> >> >> >> So yeah, the second "diff" cannot be "git diff". Maybe "cmp", but not >> >> "git diff". >> > >> > Well cmp would be fine as well, seeing all we want is a boolean "is >> > this the same or not" answer. (I'm not familiar with the GNU diff bug >> > you speak of, but was it so bad that it couldn't even get *that* >> > answer right?) >> >> Heh, there's at least one distribution out there (Suse 10.1) that comes >> with a *cmp* that doesn't get that answer right if its output is >> connected to /dev/null, which is the case when you simply 'make test'. > > Yeah. That's what it was. I even posted a patch to GNU diff, only to > find out that it was already fixed in CVS. Sigh. Wait. Are you still talking about diff or cmp, or are you saying that your earlier statement about avoiding GNU diff due to its bugs is unfounded?