# git log -S doesn't find some commits 7 messages from 2008-11-04 to 2008-11-05. Participants: Bernt Hansen, Pieter de Bie, Johannes Schindelin, Junio C Hamano. Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/16174 ## Bernt Hansen, 2008-11-04 22:59 Subject: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <87fxm7rtb7.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/87fxm7rtb7.fsf%40gollum.intra.norang.ca ``` Hi! The org-mode repository at git://repo.or.cz/org-mode.git has history that looks like this: o--o--o--o-------------------M--F--o-- .. --o master / / A--o-- .. --o--o-------------o--o--B--C--X--D where commits A, B, C, D, and F all modify lines with 'org-publish-validate-link'. M is a merge commit and X has an empty log message. $ git checkout 8ea076e2de2b3721bd813ea5a2df1b53d0c25055 # commit F $ git log -Sorg-publish-validate-link reports 3 commits F, A, and something earlier than A Commits B, C, and D are not included in the git log -S output even though with gitk you can see that 'org-publish-validate-link' is in the patch. Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug? $ git --version git version 1.6.0.3.523.g304d0 I've marked the commits in column one below. $ git log --pretty=oneline F 8ea076e2de2b3721bd813ea5a2df1b53d0c25055 Updated org-publish.el (now version 1.8 e322abfd14267a154a06deb1e7ef5a432b17f68a Merge branch 'add-recursion-to-org-publ 6208fb43cb1bbab852560cf506c7d12674307492 Minor docstring fix. df54646ab324b11e99279dc0b6dfa161a1c72c7d Fixed the Timeline node. D 4dcecb97bf4586c26f7e955980caa7e9630ae9a7 More cleaning. X eda5a993cab01acd6878ab6c982b075d2cba167b *** empty log message *** C b05bc10e6794c902df679b906d8bd6ec3f5633a9 Cleaned up code. B 837c81ce51d90427bbcc32b06d84505b1a1e6b2a Use alist instead of a hashtable. 960449c9e93725f791bd450d3c85fd71339efb09 Cleaned up the buffer. bf09955fec57307616926959b31e19af42520db0 Bugfix for `org-archive-subtree'. f247d16417f17140a5bd5d03db164cc74191d9c1 Added support for :maxlevel and :skip-e bd172412fafaa0386762826677f9929c9c4fc41c Added support for recursive publication 96e96fa684585e9916f4d6cdde20d4df7ff3f7d7 Added (require 'erc-log). Thanks for git! Bernt ``` ## Pieter de Bie, 2008-11-04 23:06 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <0A948471-7FAA-489A-A86C-D014C6E4C8C9@ai.rug.nl> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/0A948471-7FAA-489A-A86C-D014C6E4C8C9%40ai.rug.nl In-Reply-To: <87fxm7rtb7.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> ``` On Nov 4, 2008, at 11:59 PM, Bernt Hansen wrote: > o--o--o--o-------------------M--F--o-- .. --o master > / / > A--o-- .. --o--o-------------o--o--B--C--X--D > > > where commits A, B, C, D, and F all modify lines with > 'org-publish-validate-link'. M is a merge commit and X has an empty > log > message. > > $ git checkout 8ea076e2de2b3721bd813ea5a2df1b53d0c25055 # commit F > $ git log -Sorg-publish-validate-link B,C,X and D are not part of 'F', so why should they be included? You can do something like 'git log -S... F D' to show commits that are also in D, or git log --all to show all commits. ``` ## Johannes Schindelin, 2008-11-04 23:15 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/alpine.DEB.1.00.0811050014310.30769%40pacific.mpi-cbg.de In-Reply-To: <87fxm7rtb7.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> ``` Hi, On Tue, 4 Nov 2008, Bernt Hansen wrote: > Commits B, C, and D are not included in the git log -S output even > though with gitk you can see that 'org-publish-validate-link' is in the > patch. It is not sufficient for it to be in the patch, it has to be added or deleted in whole. So for example if you had a line org-publish-validate-link Hello and you changed it to org-publish-validate-link World git log -SWorld will find the commit, but git log -Sorg-publish-validate-link will not. Hth, Dscho ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2008-11-04 23:45 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <7vod0voy22.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vod0voy22.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org In-Reply-To: ``` Johannes Schindelin writes: > On Tue, 4 Nov 2008, Bernt Hansen wrote: > >> Commits B, C, and D are not included in the git log -S output even >> though with gitk you can see that 'org-publish-validate-link' is in the >> patch. > > It is not sufficient for it to be in the patch, it has to be added or > deleted in whole. So for example if you had a line > > org-publish-validate-link Hello > > and you changed it to > > org-publish-validate-link World > > git log -SWorld will find the commit, but git log > -Sorg-publish-validate-link will not. It seems nobody has looked at the actual commits, but Dscho got it 80% right. There seems to be a misconception on what -S does. It does *NOT* grep for string in the patch text. It counts number of in preimage and postimage and decides that the commit is worth showing iff they differ. If you look at, for example (B): http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git?a=commitdiff;h=837c81ce51 You can see that in org-publish.el, org-publish-validate-link appears once as removed and once as added, so the total number of the appearance of the symbol in preimage and postimage are the same. ``` ## Bernt Hansen, 2008-11-05 00:25 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <87bpwvrpbk.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/87bpwvrpbk.fsf%40gollum.intra.norang.ca In-Reply-To: ``` Johannes Schindelin writes: > On Tue, 4 Nov 2008, Bernt Hansen wrote: > >> Commits B, C, and D are not included in the git log -S output even >> though with gitk you can see that 'org-publish-validate-link' is in the >> patch. > > It is not sufficient for it to be in the patch, it has to be added or > deleted in whole. So for example if you had a line > > org-publish-validate-link Hello > > and you changed it to > > org-publish-validate-link World > > git log -SWorld will find the commit, but git log > -Sorg-publish-validate-link will not. Ah I wasn't aware of that. In this case the function 'org-publish-validate-link' was commented out, and then in a later commit the comments were removed. I was expecting these commits to be found by git log -S. Thanks! Bernt ``` ## Bernt Hansen, 2008-11-05 00:29 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <877i7jrp67.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/877i7jrp67.fsf%40gollum.intra.norang.ca In-Reply-To: <7vod0voy22.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> ``` Junio C Hamano writes: > Johannes Schindelin writes: > >> On Tue, 4 Nov 2008, Bernt Hansen wrote: >> >>> Commits B, C, and D are not included in the git log -S output even >>> though with gitk you can see that 'org-publish-validate-link' is in the >>> patch. >> >> It is not sufficient for it to be in the patch, it has to be added or >> deleted in whole. So for example if you had a line >> >> org-publish-validate-link Hello >> >> and you changed it to >> >> org-publish-validate-link World >> >> git log -SWorld will find the commit, but git log >> -Sorg-publish-validate-link will not. > > It seems nobody has looked at the actual commits, but Dscho got it 80% > right. > > There seems to be a misconception on what -S does. It does *NOT* > grep for string in the patch text. It counts number of in > preimage and postimage and decides that the commit is worth showing iff > they differ. > > If you look at, for example (B): > > http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git?a=commitdiff;h=837c81ce51 > > You can see that in org-publish.el, org-publish-validate-link appears once > as removed and once as added, so the total number of the appearance of the > symbol in preimage and postimage are the same. Now I get it :) Thanks both of you! Regards, Bernt ``` ## Junio C Hamano, 2008-11-05 01:30 Subject: Re: git log -S doesn't find some commits Message-ID: <7vy6zzm02b.fsf@gitster.siamese.dyndns.org> URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/7vy6zzm02b.fsf%40gitster.siamese.dyndns.org In-Reply-To: <877i7jrp67.fsf@gollum.intra.norang.ca> ``` Bernt Hansen writes: > Junio C Hamano writes: > ... >> There seems to be a misconception on what -S does. It does *NOT* >> grep for string in the patch text. It counts number of in >> preimage and postimage and decides that the commit is worth showing iff >> they differ. >> >> If you look at, for example (B): >> >> http://repo.or.cz/w/org-mode.git?a=commitdiff;h=837c81ce51 >> >> You can see that in org-publish.el, org-publish-validate-link appears once >> as removed and once as added, so the total number of the appearance of the >> symbol in preimage and postimage are the same. > > Now I get it :) > > Thanks both of you! By the way, I would not be opposed to a new feature, perhaps triggered with -G, that acts as if it is grepping inside the patch text. The reason behind -S's behaviour is because it was designed as a part ofa "incremetal digging" tool before the current "git-blame" that allows to track even line-movements. That is, you could write a tool to help the following interactively: (1) get interested in a block of text in a recent version; (2) feed that to 'git log' like this: git log -1 -p -S"$potentially_multi_line_text" $rev this will find an old rev R whose parent R^ did not have the lines in the exact form you fed with -S. (3) inspect the output, and decide what to do next: (3-a) you may want to adjust the text you look for, taking into account how the neighbouring lines used to look like in R^, and run another "git log -S" starting at R^; and/or (3-b) you may want to run "git grep" for the text in the entire tree in R^, to see if this was a code refactoring that consolidates multiple copies of the same thing into a single place. and go back to step (2). cf. http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/27/focus=217 ```