Re: Feature request on git log --oneline <revision range> -- <path>...

["Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason" <avarab@gmail.com>]

On Wed, Feb 13 2019, Petri Gynther wrote:

> git developers:
>
> Small feature request on:
> git log --oneline <revision range> -- <path>...
>
> Could we add an option to:
> 1) display all commits in <revision range> unconditionally
> 2) use a special marker (e.g. star) for commits that touch <path>...
> and list the files from <path>... that this commit modified
>
> Sample output:
> git log --oneline (--annotated?) HEAD~5..HEAD -- Makefile kernel/printk/printk.c
>
>   aaaabbbbccc1 uninteresting commit 1
> * aaaabbbbccc2 fix Makefile
>     Makefile
>   aaaabbbbccc3 uninteresting commit 2
> * aaaabbbbccc4 fix Makefile and printk()
>     Makefile
>     kernel/printk/printk.c
>   aaaabbbbccc5 uninteresting commit 3
>
> In other words:
> - commits that don't touch <path>... are still listed (without special markers)
> - commits that touch <path>... are listed with * prefix, and the files
> from <path>... that the commit modified are listed below the commit
>
> This is very useful for kernel LTS merges, when we want to know which
> LTS patches in the merge chain actually touched the files that matter
> for a specific build target.

What do you think such an option should do when it finds negative path
specs, e.g. this on git.git:

    git log --oneline --stat -- ':!/Makefile' '*Makefile*'

Should it only render positive matches, or distinguish between
matched/blacklisted/not-matched, your example (with no negative
patspecs) just shows matched/not-matched.

> Is this an easy add-on to git log?

It's been a while since I looked at this code, but (depending on the
answer to the above) I don't think it would be that hard. We already
pass up what we matched for the --stat machinery. E.g. try on git.git:

    git log --oneline -1 --stat 32ceace39f --
    git log --oneline -1 --stat 32ceace39f -- '*fetch.c'

The former shows a few modified *.c files in the --stat, the latter just
builtin/fetch.c since it matched.