Re: [RFC PATCH 0/2] extend --abbrev support to diff-patch format

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 10, 2020, 15:06 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq364uee1s.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20200810100038.GB37030@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 20 quoted lines

> On Sun, Aug 09, 2020 at 12:01:35PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>> Đoàn Trần Công Danh  <congdanhqx@gmail.com> writes:
>> 
>> > Đoàn Trần Công Danh (2):
>> >   revision: differentiate if --no-abbrev asked explicitly
>> >   diff: extend --abbrev support to diff-patch format
>> 
>> It was not clear, at least to me at all, what these patches are
>> trying to achieve (i.e. what end-users appreciate) until I saw the
>> code change X-<.
>> 
>> The changes to fill_metainfo() make sense to me.  It just needs log
>> messages that explain the intent better.  They do not even make it
>> clear that they want to make the abbreviation length of the object
>> names on the "index $from..$to $mode" lines configurable.
>
> After reading the original including cover letter, I'm still confused
> using why --full-index is not the solution for most cases. Perhaps that
> would be worth touching on, as well.

True.

Presumably you could force some stability without sacrificing line length limit by using --abbrev=12 instead of --full-index but I do not think it is such a big deal. But it does look odd that we use a special/single-purpose option --full-index to control the length only for those two object names on the "index" line, when all the other object names we see are controlled with the --abbrev option.