Re: [PATCH v2 0/2] make commit --verbose work with --no-status

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Jun 5, 2015, 16:03 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqbnguta69.fsf@gitster.dls.corp.google.com>
In-Reply-To: <CALUzUxqeadRii1o0-yo=QaZCqoAzGk+aVq=y1-11dJvK=em0qw@mail.gmail.com>

Tay Ray Chuan <rctay89@gmail.com> writes:

Show 5 quoted lines

> Would it be a good idea to have a --diff-only option to include diff,
> but not status output? Or perhaps a --diff option, while leaving it to
> the user to specify if status output is to be included with
> --no-status, which would open the doors for mixing and matching status
> formatting control, eg. with --short.

The name "--diff-only" does not sound right, as people would wonder what should happen when you give "--status --diff-only".

Perhaps you would need to do some careful thinking, similar to what we did when deciding the "diff" and "log" options.

We originally had "--patch" and then "--patch-with-stat" to "diff" and "log", but soon after that people found that "show only stat without the patch text" is a useful thing to do. We retrofitted the command line parser to take "--patch" and "--stat" as orthogonal but inter-related options, which was a successful conversion that did not break backward compatibility (These days people would not even know that these strangely combined forms "--patch-with-stat" and "--patch-with-raw" even exist).

All of the above assumes that showing only the patch and not other hints to help situation awareness while making a commit is a useful thing in the first place. I am undecided on that point myself.

Thanks.