Re: I use whatchanged!

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 25, 2025, 15:59 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq5xebtmsl.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <20250825085428.GA367101@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 10 quoted lines

> The culprit is the revs.always_show_header flag, which git-log sets but
> git-whatchanged does not. I don't think there is a way to influence it
> with an option, though. You can simplify history by giving a pathspec,
> but that can have broader changes (e.g., it may also simplify away side
> branches).
>
> I don't know if that's an option that should be added before declaring
> whatchanged dead. Arguably the git-log behavior is much more reasonable,
> but I don't know if anybody cares about being byte-for-byte identical to
> whatchanged behavior.

"git log" behaviour of showing the presence of empty commits is reasonable in the context of "showing the log". "git whatchanged" bbehaviour of reporting which commits changed things (either in the whole tree, or limited by pathspec) and omitting is reasonable in the context of "showing what commit changed these things".

I do not think byte-for-byte identical output is a requirement, but I of course am biased ;-)