Re: "git diff --stat" doesn't show added empty file

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Jan 12, 2009, 16:13 UTC
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.2.00.0901120805310.6528@localhost.localdomain>
In-Reply-To: <46dff0320901111936h6343e51fo94750d83e95743dc@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, 12 Jan 2009, Ping Yin wrote:

> $ git diff --stat HEAD^..
>  0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

In the kernel, we use "git diff --stat --summary" for exactly this reason.

Well, not exactly.

The thing is, even if the file is _not_ empty, there's a huge difference between "added 100 lines to an already-existing file" and "created a new 100-line file". Which is exactly what "--summary" adds.

And it sometimes even makes sense to show the summary without the diffstat. If you're _only_ interested in create/delete/rename information, you can do "git show --summary <cmit>". It won't give you line counts, but it will give you information about any changes to filenames, eg in the kernel archive, you could see an example of this with

	git show -M --summary 95b482a8d31116f3f5c2a5089569393234d06385

where you have a combination of renames, creates and deletes.

So I think it's already better than what you ask for.

			Linus