From: Kevin Daudt <kdaudt@alpinelinux.org>
To: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>
Cc: Arnaud Bertrand <xda@abalgo.com>, git@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Mismatch meaning between git-diff and git-log for the .. (double dot notation) and ... (triple dot notation)
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2019 19:29:39 +0100 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20191223182939.GB676947@alpha> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <xmqqy2v26hu0.fsf@gitster-ct.c.googlers.com>
On Mon, Dec 23, 2019 at 10:02:31AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote:
> Please unlearn dot-dot and three-dots when using "git diff", which
> is not about ranges but about comparing two endpoints. If we were
> reinventing Git today from scratch, we would make "git diff A..B" an
> error. You can consider it a bug that the command accepts a range
> notation, but this will not change any time soon without a large
> fight to find and fix uses of the syntax in scripts by longtime Git
> users have written over the years.
>
> Allowing dot-dot on the command line of "git diff", instead of
> diagnosing them as errors and dying, was a stupid mistake we (well,
> mostly Linus, but I am willing to take the blame too) made due to
> laziness when we reused the machinery, which we invented to parse
> the command line of "log" family of commands to specify ranges, to
> parse the command line of "diff", which accidentally ended up
> allowing the syntax for ranges where it shouldn't be allowed.
>
> And worse yet, since there was only dot-dot and three-dots came much
> later, "git diff A..B" ended up comparing the endpoints A and B,
> because there didn't even A...B notation exist.
>
> This is not limited to you but any user of modern Git is better off
> to pretend "git diff A..B" does not exist; please unlearn dot-dot
> and three-dots when using "git diff" and you'd be happier.
I agreen that you should not use `A..B`, but what is wrong with
`A...B`? The alternative is a lot more verbose.
git diff $(git merge-base A B) B
Kevin
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-12-23 18:42 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 5+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-12-23 12:51 Mismatch meaning between git-diff and git-log for the .. (double dot notation) and ... (triple dot notation) Arnaud Bertrand
2019-12-23 18:02 ` Junio C Hamano
2019-12-23 18:29 ` Kevin Daudt [this message]
2019-12-23 21:59 ` Jonathan Nieder
2019-12-23 22:10 ` Junio C Hamano
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