On Tue, Dec 13, 2016 at 10:48:07AM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > I think the problem is just that "add -p" does not give the whole story > > of what you might want to do before making a commit. > > The same is shared by "git diff [HEAD]", by the way. It is beyond > me why people use "add -p", not "git diff [HEAD]", for the final > sanity check before committing. > > Perhaps the latter is not advertised well enough? "add -p" does not > even page so it is not very useful way to check what is being added > if you are adding a new file (unless you are doing a toy example to > add a 7-line file). I use "add -p" routinely for my final add-and-sanity-check, and it is certainly not because I don't know about "git diff". I think it's just nice to break it into bite-size chunks and sort them into "yes, OK" or "no, not yet" bins. The lack of paging isn't usually a problem, because this "add -p" is useful precisely when you have a lot of little changes spread across the code base. I'd probably also run "git diff" if I wanted to look at something bigger. And I routinely use "git status", too, to see the full state of my tree. To me they are all tools in the toolbox, and I can pick the one that works best in any given situation, or that I just feel like using that day. > >> Hm, "interactive.showUntracked" is a confusing name because "git add -i" > >> (interactive) already handles untracked files. > > > > Sure, that was just meant for illustration. I agree there's probably a > > better name. > > "interactive.*" is not a sensible hierarchy to use, because things > other than "add" can go interactive. > > addPatch.showUntracked? Hmm, I wonder if interactive.diffFilter was mis-named then. The description is written in such a way as to cover other possible interactive commands showing a diff. It might be possible to do the same here: come up with a general option that _could_ cover new situations, but right now just applies here. Or maybe it would be too confusing. TBH, I wasn't all that concerned with the name yet. Whoever writes the patch can figure it out, and _then_ we can all bikeshed it. :) -Peff