Re: [PATCH] The diff-raw format updates.

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: May 22, 2005, 23:14 UTC
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0505221611020.2307@ppc970.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <7vis1adfvq.fsf@assigned-by-dhcp.cox.net>

On Sun, 22 May 2005, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> 
>     Everything but the last are copies.  If the last one have
>     different src and dst, then it is a rename.  Otherwise it
>     is a "stay".

If so, I disagree. Totally.

You seem to think that it's a feature that you can't get the same output out of git-diff-helper, and I think that's not a feature, but a total bug.

> LT> resulting in:
> 
> That's not a counter-example.  You are agreeing to what I said in
> this message:

No, I'm not agreeing at all. I'm saying that this is unacceptable, and if this was intentional, as you seem to be saying, then it was in my opinion a bad idea. We might as well go back to the original diff format, which had other problems, but they were no worse than the new one.

Basically, with the new format as-is, renames and copies cannot be described sanely. That was exactly the same problem as the old format had, except the old format was less verbose. So why do the new format at all?

I'm arguing that we should consider it a _requirement_ that "raw diffs" can be translated into te same thing the "-p" flag internally does.

		Linus