Re: git-diff on touched files: bug or feature?

[Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de>]

Hi,

On Thu, 2 Aug 2007, Matthieu Moy wrote:

> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
> 
> >> I fully agree that git should be optimized for the common case. But
> >> even for the common case, I also find the feature strange. You didn't
> >> answer that part of my message, but I still fail to see a rationale
> >> for making "git-diff; git-status" different from "git-status; git-diff".
> >
> > For performance reasons, git always compares the files' stat information 
> > with that stored in the index.
> 
> I know that, but how does it answer the part of my message that you
> are citing?

You _acknowledge_ that git is optimized for performance!  And therefore 
you should also acknowledge that you _throw that away_ if you let your 
index go out of sync.

> > So when you do "git diff" and it tells you all those diff lines, while no 
> > file was really changed, it tells you "get your act together!  You just 
> > _willfully_ slowed down git's performance".
> 
> The question remains: why should someone running git-diff get this,
> and someone running git-status not get this?

Because git-status is an index-updating operation.  That's why.

Ciao,
Dscho