Re: git whatchanged

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: Aug 20, 2025, 16:49 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqfrdmaqg4.fsf@gitster.g>
In-Reply-To: <37da14fb-fead-448b-b6a0-853c9fbea653@app.fastmail.com>

"Kristoffer Haugsbakk" <kristofferhaugsbakk@fastmail.com> writes:

Show 19 quoted lines

> On Tue, Aug 19, 2025, at 22:57, rsbecker@nexbridge.com wrote:
>> On August 19, 2025 1:51 PM, Chris Judkins-Fisher wrote:
>>>I still use git whatchanged
>>
>> I did too. However, now that git log --since has basically the same
>> functionality,
>> Perhaps setting up a git alias might do the trick for you:
>>
>> git config --global alias.whatchanged 'log'
>>
>> so
>>
>> git whatchanged --since="2 week"
>>
>> or something like that should continue to work after the command is
>> removed.
>
> You can’t alias core commands.  So this will fail in the reported way
> before Git 3.0.  Then from that point out it will work as an alias.

Not quite.

  $ git -c alias.whatchanged='!echo bar' \
	whatchanged --i-still-use-this -2 --oneline
  7c10e48e81 describe: pass commit to describe_commit()
  :100644 100644 72b2e1162c 04df89d56b M	builtin/describe.c
  8cfd4ac215 describe: handle blob traversal with no commits
  :100644 100644 f7bea3c8c5 72b2e1162c M	builtin/describe.c
  :100755 100755 feec57bcbc 2c70cc561a M	t/t6120-describe.sh

Your alias with the same name as a real command is silently ignored, and when the real command disappears, it will start working.

Having said that, as "log --raw" is even shorter to type than "whatchanged", these people are really better off without such an alias.