Re: git alias question

From: David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com>
Date: Dec 30, 2011, 01:59 UTC
Message-ID: <CAJDDKr5a8TB82h4ULWtamLOVu_4Fv+cGw1YfEL987gM3yM4TMg@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <CAD0k6qTp9sKCb==Jh1vuLuZoxx99Kt2Z=VAbjYbGaUE7nbOxdQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Dave Borowitz <dborowitz@google.com> wrote:

Show 12 quoted lines

> On Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 17:27, Michael Horowitz
> <michael.horowitz@ieee.org> wrote:
>> ldiff = "!git diff `git rev-list --reverse -n 2 HEAD -- $1` -- $1"
>
> FWIW, you can also do this as:
>  ldiff = log -p -1 --format=format: --
>
>> ldifft = "!git difftool `git rev-list --reverse -n 2 HEAD -- $1` -- $1"
>
> I don't know that you can do something equivalent with difftool. I
> suppose you could do the above with "GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=<some difftool
> wrapper> git ldiff", but that's not very helpful.

difftool cannot be driven by log right now. It is something we thought would be helpful in the past:

http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/114269/focus=114367

On 2009-03-23 Junio C Hamano <gitster <at> pobox.com> wrote:

> Perhaps we would want a convenient way for "log -p" or "show -p" to drive
> difftool as a backend?

I think that's exactly it. difftool wraps diff; a log equivalent would be quite helpful.

One idea is for difftool to learn a "--log" option to make it wrap log instead. I don't know if a diff-like command having a "--log" option is ideal from a consistency-of-user-interface POV so I'm open to ideas. It is convenient, though. It does seem like difftool would be a good place to expose this feature.

I'd be interested in the "teach log / show -p about GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF" route, if that sounds like a good idea.

-- 
            David