Re: log -p hides changes in merge commit

[Phillip Susi <psusi@cfl.rr.com>]

On 1/6/2011 2:43 PM, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Depends on the definition of "correctly", but perhaps you have a
> definition different from ours ;-) The "patches" shown with -c/--cc are
> designed to be different from normal diff so that people do not
> accidentally try to apply them with "patch" or "git apply".
> 
> "log -p" omits merge commits by default because diffs of merges are mostly
> not useful for ordinary purposes.  If you are trying to use "log -p" to
> reproduce a (part of) history, perhaps you would want to also study -m
> option.

What I would like to do is be able to review a merge to sign off on it.
 While the full diff against the left parent would be a large and
unhelpful amalgamation of the changes in the merged branch, any
additional changes made during the commit should not be hidden.  This
allows someone performing the merge to effectively sneak in unintended
changes.  I would expect any such changes to be shown by log -p, but
this only seems to happen if you add -c.