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From: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
To: Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@univ-lyon1.fr>
Cc: Sergey Organov <sorganov@gmail.com>,
	Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>,
	"git@vger.kernel.org" <git@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Can we clarify the purpose of `git diff -s`?
Date: Fri, 12 May 2023 10:03:51 -0700	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <xmqqo7mpqy6g.fsf@gitster.g> (raw)
In-Reply-To: 4f713a29-1a34-2f71-ee54-c01020be903a@univ-lyon1.fr

Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@univ-lyon1.fr> writes:

> https://public-inbox.org/git/51E3DC47.70107@googlemail.com/
>
> Essentially, Stefan Beller was using 'git show --format="%ad"' and
> expecting it to show only the author date, and for merge commits it
> also showed the patch (--cc). I suggested -s and noticed that the
> option wasn't easily discoverable, hence the patch series to better
> document it and add --no-patch as a synonym.
>
> Probably I did not get all the subtleties of the different kinds of
> outputs. I guess I considered the output of diff to be the one
> specified by --format plus the patch (not considering --raw, --stat &
> friends), hence "get only the output specified by --format" and
> "disable the patch" were synonym to me.

Thanks for double checking.  It matches my recollection that we (you
the author and other reviewers as well) added "--no-patch" back then
to mean "no output from diff machinery, exactly the same as '-s' but
use a name that is more discoverable".

> Looking more closely, it's
> rather clear to me they are not, and that
>
>   git show --raw --patch --no-patch
>
> should be equivalent to
>
>   git show --raw

Yeah.  If this were 10 years ago and we were designing from scratch,
the "no output from diff machinery, more discoverable alias for
'-s'" would have been "--silent" or "--squelch" and we would made
any "--no-<format>" to defeat only "--<format>".

It is a different matter if we can safely change what "--no-patch"
means _now_.  Given that "--no-patch" was introduced for the
explicit purpose of giving "-s" a name that is easier to remember,
and given that in the 10 years since we did so, we may have acquired
at least a few more end users of Git than we used to have, hopefully
your change have helped them discover and learn to use "--no-patch"
to defeat any "--<format>" they gave earlier as initial options in
their script, which will be broken and need to be updated to use a
much less discoverable "-s".

Thanks.

  reply	other threads:[~2023-05-12 17:04 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 39+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2023-05-11  3:14 Can we clarify the purpose of `git diff -s`? Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 11:59 ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 16:26   ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-11 17:37   ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-11 18:04     ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 18:27       ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-11 18:36       ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 18:17     ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 17:41   ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 18:31     ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 19:10       ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 19:32         ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 19:54           ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 20:24             ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 20:59               ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-11 22:49                 ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-11 23:28                   ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12  8:40                     ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-12 19:19                       ` Felipe Contreras
     [not found]   ` <5bb24e0208dd4a8ca5f6697d578f3ae0@SAMBXP02.univ-lyon1.fr>
2023-05-12  8:15     ` Matthieu Moy
2023-05-12 17:03       ` Junio C Hamano [this message]
2023-05-12 18:21         ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-12 19:21           ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 19:34             ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 20:28             ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12 20:47               ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 21:01                 ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12 21:47                   ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 21:48                     ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 23:21                     ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12 21:41                 ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-12 22:17                   ` Junio C Hamano
2023-05-12 22:47                     ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-12 23:07                   ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-13 14:58                     ` Philip Oakley
2023-05-13 17:45                       ` Sergey Organov
2023-05-12 19:47           ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12 19:34         ` Felipe Contreras
2023-05-12 19:17       ` Felipe Contreras

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