RE: how to display file history?

From: Brown, Len <len.brown@intel.com>
Date: May 15, 2006, 19:04 UTC
Message-ID: <CFF307C98FEABE47A452B27C06B85BB670FD1B@hdsmsx411.amr.corp.intel.com>

Show 20 quoted lines

>> >	git log --stat -- A
>> 
>> very handy indeed.
>> 
>> I was surprised on initial use that --stat is
>> limited to the file specified in "A" and doesn't
>> expand to describe the entire commit that touches "A".
>> (ie. the stat output is a subset of what is associated
>> with the displayed commit comments).
>> 
>> This, of course, is clear now, it just isn't what
>> I expected on first use.
>
>Well,  you can obviously have your cake and eat it too (ie 
>"--full-diff").
>
>I don't often end up using the "--full-diff" thing. It's almost never 
>actually worth it until I find the diff that I actually start caring 
>about, and the full diff just makes it harder to see the part 
>I explicitly told git I was interested in.

sounds good.

>So the default "show only diffs for the files asked for" 
>behaviour is in my opinion much superior (and it used to be the only

one),

>because the "show the whole thing" part ends up being something you use

only once

>you've already skimmed the default case and decide to go deeper.

I agree.

>Of course, "gitk" ends up using the full diff by default in its diff 
>window. I'm not convinced that's the right thing, but usually 
>when I use gitk I'm primarily looking at the history and the commit
>messages to decide if it's a relevant one, not the diff, so I don't

think

>it matters.

Yeah, I agree that gitk is fine how it is.

The only part I don't agree with above is the word "obviously". '--full-diff --stats' didn't jump out at me from the man page.

To be fair, yes, I should probably take the time to read the docs through and not rely on the man pages, they've changed a lot since I last looked.

-Len