Re: [PATCH 0/4] Selectively show only blamed limes

From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Date: May 31, 2020, 16:02 UTC
Message-ID: <xmqqtuzww0si.fsf@gitster.c.googlers.com>
In-Reply-To: <20200528164533.GA1223132@coredump.intra.peff.net>

Jeff King <peff@peff.net> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> I think:
>
>   git blame -b --since=1.year.ago ... | less "+/^[^ ]"
>
> works pretty well to get you to the right spot, with context (and then
> "/<enter>" within less takes you to the next line).
>
> But that's also pretty magical.

Instead of teaching each and every tool (like "git blame", "diff", "grep", etc.) a special trick to remove the lines from its output, it may make a lot more sense to add a feature to pagers that lets the users selectively "hide" the matching lines given a pattern. Then when viewing "git blame -b" output, you can first declare "lines that begin with a whitespace are sometimes uninteresting" and then tell your pager "now unshow uninteresting lines", "the same, but show 3 lines at the boundary of runs of uninteresting lines", "now show everything", etc.

That's another reason why I do not particularly find the proposed feature interesting.