Re: [PATCH v2 1/3] range-diff/format-patch: refactor check for commit range

["Uwe Kleine-König" <u.kleine-koenig@pengutronix.de>]

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On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 12:27:10PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> "Johannes Schindelin via GitGitGadget" <gitgitgadget@gmail.com>
> writes:
> 
> > From: Johannes Schindelin <johannes.schindelin@gmx.de>
> >
> > Currently, when called with exactly two arguments, `git range-diff`
> > tests for a literal `..` in each of the two. Likewise, the argument
> > provided via `--range-diff` to `git format-patch` is checked in the same
> > manner.
> >
> > However, `<commit>^!` is a perfectly valid commit range, equivalent to
> > `<commit>^..<commit>` according to the `SPECIFYING RANGES` section of
> > gitrevisions[7].
> >
> > In preparation for allowing more sophisticated ways to specify commit
> > ranges, let's refactor the check into its own function.
> 
> I think the sharing between the two makes sense, but the helper
> function should make it clear in its name that this is "the kind of
> commit range range-diff wants to take".  Among the commit range "git
> log" and friends can take, range-diff can take only a subset of it,
> and only a subset of it is meaningful to range-diff (e.g. HEAD^@ is
> still a commit range you can give to "git log", but it would not
> make much sense to give it to range-diff).

Does it make so little sense to forbid passing HEAD^@ as a range to
range-diff? I can imagine situations where is would make sense, e.g. I
often create customer patch stacks from a set of topic branches using
octopus merge. To compare two of these ^@ might be handy.

My POV is that if it's easy to use the same function (and so the same
set of range descriptors) for git log and git range-diff then do so.
This yields a consistent behaviour which is IMHO better than preventing
people to do things that are considered strange today.

Best regards
Uwe

-- 
Pengutronix e.K.                           | Uwe Kleine-König            |
Industrial Linux Solutions                 | https://www.pengutronix.de/ |

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