Re: [PATCH] Documentation/diff-options: explain different diff algorithms

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 7, 2018, 15:56 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqq600mmaqn.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20180806231843.GA4117@aiede.svl.corp.google.com>

Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> writes:

> Both don't seem quite right, since they have an extra space before the
> period.  The git-diff(1) seems especially not quite right --- does it
> intend to say something like "See the DIFF ALGORITHMS section for more
> discussion"?

Good suggestion and doing so would nicely allow side-stepping the space before the dot issue, i.e. "See the DIFF ALGO section (in git-diff(1)) for more discussion". I like it.

Show 27 quoted lines

> [...]
>> --- a/Documentation/git-diff.txt
>> +++ b/Documentation/git-diff.txt
>> @@ -119,6 +119,40 @@ include::diff-options.txt[]
>>  
>>  include::diff-format.txt[]
>>  
>> +DIFF ALGORITHMS
>> +---------------
>
> Please add some introductory words about what the headings refer to.
>
>> +`Myers`
>> +
>> +A diff as produced by the basic greedy algorithm described in
>> +link:http://www.xmailserver.org/diff2.pdf[An O(ND) Difference Algorithm and its Variations].
>> +...
>> +
>> +`Patience`
>> +
>> +This algorithm by Bram Cohen matches the longest common subsequence
>> +...
> [...]
>> +`Histogram`
>> +
>> +This algorithm finds the longest common substring and recursively
>> +diffs the content before and after the longest common substring.

As a first-time reader, I felt that it is a bit uneven that there is no attribution for only this item, unlike the description for Myers and Patience.