git/list[1] front-page[2] threads[3] people[4] search[5] about
 

Re: [PATCH 0/4] diff text conversion filter

From
Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@imag.fr>
Date
Oct 7, 2008, 06:15 UTC
Message-ID
<vpqprmdlylq.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To
<20081007060014.GA7965@coredump.intra.peff.net>
Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:
Show 16 quoted lines
> On Tue, Oct 07, 2008 at 07:52:02AM +0200, Johannes Sixt wrote:
>
>> How about this: If I run 'git show -- foo.doc' (foo.doc resolves to a
>> single path, obviously), I want MS Word, but for other uses of 'git show'
>> I don't. I think that heuristics could be very effective: With a plain
>> 'git show' I get the overview of the change, and with 'git show --
>> foo.doc' I drill down into a single document.
>
> Hrm. I am not opposed to heuristics, but in this case, I don't like the
> one you have proposed. ;P
>
> My specific case that prompted this work is a repository full of
> pictures and videos, where I rarely (if ever) change the media content,
> but frequently change exif tags. So my "usual" case is to want to see
> "git log -p" with the textconv'd version. The commit diffs are otherwise
> totally meaningless.

So, you disagree about "git log" not showing the textconv, but you still agree with half of the proposal :-P. When the user explicitely requests a single file, he does want textconv (requesting a diff for a single file and be happy with "binary files differ" would be strange ...).

It seems quite clear to me that we won't get a heuristic right for everybody (some diff driver are fast, some are slow, some require an external GUI, some don't, ...). Better let the thing be nicely configurable IMHO.

One proposal: have a diff.<driver>.activate with several values:
* "always": activate the diff driver in any porcelain
* "diff": activate it only for "git diff", as currently
* "singlefile": Johannes's heuristic proposal

That way, one could say easily "activate exiftags filter all the time, but MS-Word only when I request a diff for a single file", and this leaves room for other values if the need be. Well, there's no room for "use MS-Word native diff tool in git-gui but antiword/catdoc + textconv in 'git log -p'" here, but do we want it?

Or is all that just overkill?
-- 
Matthieu
Previous: Jeff KingNext: Jeff King
Message 82 of 85 in “Implementation of a "textconv" filter for easy custom diff.”
  1. Matthieu MoySep 28, 2008
  2. Facility to have multiple kinds of drivers for diff.Matthieu Moy, Sep 28, 2008
  3. Implement run_command_to_buf (spawn a process and reads its stdout)Matthieu Moy, Sep 28, 2008
  4. Implement a textconv filter for "git diff"Matthieu Moy, Sep 28, 2008
  5. Document the textconv filter.Matthieu Moy, Sep 28, 2008
  6. Add a basic test for the textconv filter.Matthieu Moy, Sep 28, 2008
  7. Johannes SixtSep 28, 2008
  8. Matthieu MoySep 28, 2008
  9. Jeff KingSep 28, 2008
  10. Matthieu MoySep 28, 2008
  11. Jeff KingSep 28, 2008
  12. Jeff KingSep 28, 2008
  13. Matthieu MoySep 28, 2008
  14. Jeff KingSep 28, 2008
  15. Matthieu MoySep 30, 2008
  16. Jeff KingSep 30, 2008
  17. 0/4 diff text conversion filterJeff King, Oct 5, 2008
  18. 1/4 t4012: use test_cmp instead of cmpJeff King, Oct 5, 2008
  19. 2/4 diff: unify external diff and funcname parsing codeJeff King, Oct 5, 2008
  20. 3/4 diff: introduce diff.<driver>.binaryJeff King, Oct 5, 2008
  21. Johannes SixtOct 7, 2008
  22. Jeff KingOct 7, 2008
  23. Johannes SixtOct 7, 2008
  24. Junio C HamanoOct 12, 2008
  25. Jeff KingOct 13, 2008
  26. Junio C HamanoOct 13, 2008
  27. Jeff KingOct 13, 2008
  28. Johannes SixtOct 13, 2008
  29. Junio C HamanoOct 13, 2008
  30. Matthieu MoyOct 13, 2008
  31. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  32. 1/5 diff: add missing static declarationJeff King, Oct 24, 2008
  33. 2/5 add userdiff textconv testsJeff King, Oct 24, 2008
  34. 3/5 refactor userdiff textconv codeJeff King, Oct 24, 2008
  35. Johannes SixtOct 24, 2008
  36. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  37. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  38. Johannes SixtOct 24, 2008
  39. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  40. Junio C HamanoOct 24, 2008
  41. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  42. Jeff KingOct 24, 2008
  43. Jeff KingOct 25, 2008
  44. 1/7 diff: add missing static declarationJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  45. 2/7 add userdiff textconv testsJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  46. 3/7 textconv: assume text-converted contents are not binaryJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  47. 4/7 textconv: don't convert for every operationJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  48. Junio C HamanoOct 25, 2008
  49. Jeff KingOct 25, 2008
  50. Junio C HamanoOct 25, 2008
  51. Jeff KingOct 25, 2008
  52. Junio C HamanoOct 25, 2008
  53. Junio C HamanoOct 25, 2008
  54. Jeff KingOct 26, 2008
  55. Jeff KingOct 26, 2008
  56. 1/8 diff: add missing static declarationJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  57. 2/8 document the diff driver textconv featureJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  58. 3/8 add userdiff textconv testsJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  59. 4/8 refactor userdiff textconv codeJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  60. 5/8 userdiff: require explicitly allowing textconvJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  61. 6/8 only textconv regular filesJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  62. 7/8 wt-status: load diff ui configJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  63. Junio C HamanoOct 27, 2008
  64. Jeff KingOct 27, 2008
  65. 8/8 enable textconv for diff in verbose status/commitJeff King, Oct 26, 2008
  66. 5/7 userdiff: require explicitly allowing textconvJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  67. 6/7 document the diff driver textconv featureJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  68. 7/7 only textconv regular filesJeff King, Oct 25, 2008
  69. 4/5 userdiff: require explicitly allowing textconvJeff King, Oct 24, 2008
  70. Johannes SixtOct 24, 2008
  71. 5/5 document the diff driver textconv featureJeff King, Oct 24, 2008
  72. Johannes SixtOct 24, 2008
  73. 4/4 diff: add filter for converting binary to textJeff King, Oct 5, 2008
  74. Jakub NarebskiOct 5, 2008
  75. Johannes SixtOct 6, 2008
  76. Jeff KingOct 6, 2008
  77. Johannes SixtOct 6, 2008
  78. Matthieu MoyOct 6, 2008
  79. Jeff KingOct 7, 2008
  80. Johannes SixtOct 7, 2008
  81. Jeff KingOct 7, 2008
  82. Matthieu MoyOct 7, 2008
  83. Jeff KingOct 7, 2008
  84. Johannes SixtOct 7, 2008
  85. Jeff KingOct 13, 2008

Read the whole thread, see it on lore, or plain text.

$ cat FOOTERMessages come from the public archive at lore.kernel.org/git, fetched every hour. The front page is chosen and written each morning by an AI editor and can be wrong; the threads themselves are the record. About and API. For agents: an MCP server at https://gitlist.dev/mcp, and any thread, story or person page as Markdown by adding .md to its URL (or sending Accept: text/markdown). Details in /llms.txt.