Re: A case where diff.colorMoved=plain is more sensible than diff.colorMoved=zebra & others

[Phillip Wood <phillip.wood@talktalk.net>]

Hi Ævar

On 06/12/2018 13:54, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason wrote:
> Let's ignore how bad this patch is for git.git, and just focus on how
> diff.colorMoved treats it:
> 
>      diff --git a/builtin/add.c b/builtin/add.c
>      index f65c172299..d1155322ef 100644
>      --- a/builtin/add.c
>      +++ b/builtin/add.c
>      @@ -6,5 +6,3 @@
>       #include "cache.h"
>      -#include "config.h"
>       #include "builtin.h"
>      -#include "lockfile.h"
>       #include "dir.h"
>      diff --git a/builtin/am.c b/builtin/am.c
>      index 8f27f3375b..eded15aa8a 100644
>      --- a/builtin/am.c
>      +++ b/builtin/am.c
>      @@ -6,3 +6,2 @@
>       #include "cache.h"
>      -#include "config.h"
>       #include "builtin.h"
>      diff --git a/builtin/blame.c b/builtin/blame.c
>      index 06a7163ffe..44a754f190 100644
>      --- a/builtin/blame.c
>      +++ b/builtin/blame.c
>      @@ -8,3 +8,2 @@
>       #include "cache.h"
>      -#include "config.h"
>       #include "color.h"
>      diff --git a/cache.h b/cache.h
>      index ca36b44ee0..ea8d60b94a 100644
>      --- a/cache.h
>      +++ b/cache.h
>      @@ -4,2 +4,4 @@
>       #include "git-compat-util.h"
>      +#include "config.h"
>      +#include "new.h"
>       #include "strbuf.h"
> 
> This is a common thing that's useful to have highlighted, e.g. we move
> includes of config.h to some common file, so I want to se all the
> deleted config.h lines as moved into the cache.h line, and then the
> "lockfile.h" I removed while I was at it plain remove, and the new
> "new.h" plain added.
> 
> Exactly that is what you get with diff.colorMoved=plain, but the default
> of diff.colorMoved=zebra gets confused by this and highlights no moves
> at all, same or "blocks" and "dimmed-zebra".
> 
> So at first I thought this had something to do with the many->one
> detection, but it seems to be simpler, we just don't detect a move of
> 1-line with anything but plain, e.g. this works as expected in all modes
> and detects the many->one:
> 
>      diff --git a/builtin/add.c b/builtin/add.c
>      index f65c172299..f4fda75890 100644
>      --- a/builtin/add.c
>      +++ b/builtin/add.c
>      @@ -5,4 +5,2 @@
>        */
>      -#include "cache.h"
>      -#include "config.h"
>       #include "builtin.h"
>      diff --git a/builtin/branch.c b/builtin/branch.c
>      index 0c55f7f065..52e39924d3 100644
>      --- a/builtin/branch.c
>      +++ b/builtin/branch.c
>      @@ -7,4 +7,2 @@
> 
>      -#include "cache.h"
>      -#include "config.h"
>       #include "color.h"
>      diff --git a/cache.h b/cache.h
>      index ca36b44ee0..d4146dbf8a 100644
>      --- a/cache.h
>      +++ b/cache.h
>      @@ -3,2 +3,4 @@
> 
>      +#include "cache.h"
>      +#include "config.h"
>       #include "git-compat-util.h"
> 
> So is there some "must be at least two consecutive lines" condition for
> not-plain, or is something else going on here?

To be considered a block has to have 20 alphanumeric characters - see 
commit f0b8fb6e59 ("diff: define block by number of alphanumeric chars", 
2017-08-15). This stops things like random '}' lines being marked as 
moved on their own. It might be better to use some kind of frequency 
information (a bit like python's difflib junk parameter) instead so that 
(fairly) unique short lines also get marked properly.

Best Wishes

Phillip