By design, "git show commit -- path" is not "git show commit:path", and there is no reason to change that. But "git show commit -- path" simply returns nothing at all "most of the time" because it prunes by pathspec even though it does not walk commits. This is pretty useless. So, turn off commit pruning (but keep diff limiting of course) so that "git show commit -- path" shows the commit message and the diff that the commit introduces to path (filtered by path); only the diff will be empty "most of the time". As an intended side effect, users mistaking "git show commit -- path" for "git show commit:path" are automatically reminded that they asked git to show a commit, not a blob. In case the user has specified "--do-walk", assume they want the old behaviour (prune by default). Signed-off-by: Michael J Gruber <git@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- builtin/log.c | 2 ++ 1 files changed, 2 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-) diff --git a/builtin/log.c b/builtin/log.c index 916019c..474a76d 100644 --- a/builtin/log.c +++ b/builtin/log.c @@ -420,6 +420,8 @@ int cmd_show(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix) opt.def = "HEAD"; opt.tweak = show_rev_tweak_rev; cmd_log_init(argc, argv, prefix, &rev, &opt); + if (rev.no_walk) + rev.prune = 0; count = rev.pending.nr; objects = rev.pending.objects; -- 1.7.4.2.668.gba03a4 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html