Re: git-difftool

["David Aguilar" <davvid@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 8:04 AM, Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@imag.fr> wrote:
> David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com> writes:
>
>> The usual use case for this script is when you have either
>> staged or unstaged changes and you'd like to see the changes
>> in a side-by-side diff viewer (e.g. xxdiff, tkdiff, etc).
>>
>>       git difftool [<filename>*]
>
> Is it not a complex way of saying
>
>        GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=xxdiff git diff
>
> ?
>
> (My 2 cents, and happy new year ;-)
>
> --
> Matthieu
>

Hmm... in theory, yes, but in practice, no.
xxdiff is too gimp to handle what 'git diff' hands it =)


For example:

$ GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=echo git diff test
test /tmp/.diff_1dh4TW 9daeafb9864cf43055ae93beb0afd6c7d144bfa4 100644 test 0000

$ GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF=xxdiff git diff test
xxdiff (cmdline.cpp:762):
You can specify at most 3 filenames.
Extra arguments: " 100644 test 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000 100644"
Use 'xxdiff --help' for more information.
external diff died, stopping at test.


I checked the git-diff documentation and could not find a way to
inhibit the sha1, mode, etc. args that are sent to GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF
(nor should there be, I presume).

I'm all for finding the simplest way and GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF seems like
the right entry point.  What I should do is change the script so that
it handles all of the choosing-a-merge-tool-logic and just have git
call it via GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF.  That would definitely simplify the
script since 'git diff' would be handling all of the tmp file and
option processing logic.  wow, I really like that idea.  Thanks for
the tip!


Happy new year,

-- 
    David