git diff --numstat notices empty file creation, while --stat does not

git diff --numstat notices empty file creation, while --stat does not

[Vishvajit Singh]

I noticed that, in the case of two trees that differ in the creation
or deletion of an empty file, git diff --numstat provides information
about the empty file, whereas git diff --stat does not.

$ git --version
git version 1.6.1.2
$ git status
# On branch master
nothing to commit (working directory clean)
$ touch x.txt
$ git add x.txt
$ git commit -m 'add x.txt'
[master]: created 62f3c25: "add x.txt"
 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 x.txt
$ git diff --stat HEAD^ HEAD
 0 files changed, 0 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)
$ git diff --numstat HEAD^ HEAD
0       0       x.txt

This behaviour surprised me as I had been using diff --stat to get an
overview of the current differences between my working branch and the
master, and I had created a temporary to-do-list file in that branch
which I had subsequently emptied. In closing that branch, I might have
inadvertently merged the empty file into the master if I had not
remembered it was there. (I will use --numstat instead now.)

Is this small difference in behaviour between the two intentional?

Thanks,
Vishvajit Singh