Re: [PATCH] Make 'diff C^!' show the same diff as 'show C'

[Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch>]

Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Thomas Rast <trast@student.ethz.ch> writes:
> 
> > Ideally, we'd like 'git diff C^!' to show the same diff that 'git show C'
> > does (with log.showroot enabled).  This gives easy access to a readable
> > diff for the commit, irrespective of how many parents it has and without
> > any trickery to remove the commit message from the git-show output.
> 
> Not interested yet, as the "git show" discussion is not convincing at all.

Well, it is currently half-supported, diff doesn't complain about it,
yet it does something wildly different from what people expect in the
zero- and two-parent cases.

And yes, people expect this to work; searching the #git logs (I won't
link here as it takes a fair while even for one request) shows that
people such as Dscho, Thiago, Jakub and Björn have recommended this
syntax in the context of diff.

> Is the message annoying enough to warrant this change?
> 
> If that is indeed the case and if it is a common thing to ask, isn't it
> more productive to teach "show" a way to do so in a simpler way than
> doing, say,
> 
> 	$ git show --pretty=format: HEAD

That still doesn't get rid of the stray newline.

-- 
Thomas Rast
trast@{inf,student}.ethz.ch