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Mon, 8 Jun 2026 13:56:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Junio C Hamano To: Vincent Lefevre Cc: git@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: inconsistent order of --diff-algorithm variants in man pages In-Reply-To: <20260608112656.GI1082778@cventin.lip.ens-lyon.fr> (Vincent Lefevre's message of "Mon, 8 Jun 2026 13:26:56 +0200") References: <20260608112656.GI1082778@cventin.lip.ens-lyon.fr> Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2026 10:56:33 -0700 Message-ID: User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Precedence: bulk X-Mailing-List: git@vger.kernel.org List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Vincent Lefevre writes: > In Documentation/diff-algorithm-option.adoc, which is used by the > git-blame(1) and git-diff(1) man pages: > > `--diff-algorithm=(patience|minimal|histogram|myers)`:: > Choose a diff algorithm. The variants are as follows: > + > -- > `default`;; > `myers`;; > The basic greedy diff algorithm. Currently, this is the default. > `minimal`;; > Spend extra time to make sure the smallest possible diff is > produced. > `patience`;; > Use "patience diff" algorithm when generating patches. > `histogram`;; > This algorithm extends the patience algorithm to "support > low-occurrence common elements". > -- > > I think that using the same order in the --diff-algorithm line and > in the description that follows would be better, i.e. > > --diff-algorithm=(myers|minimal|patience|histogram) > > FYI, the text was added in 07924d4d50e5304fb53eb60aaba8aef31d4c4e5e > in 2013, but without any explanation on this difference. I think this is meant to list them as equals without any precedence or preference order, so it is understandable that nobody paid much attention. Until now, that is. I agree that being consistent between these two places makes tons of sense. I just do not know what the right ordering should be. When listing a set of equals without any precedence or preference order, the most easy to see to new readers is alphabetical, except that the built-in default (myers) is a head above among other equals, so it does make sense to present it first.