Am 03.03.2017 um 17:07 schrieb Junio C Hamano: > Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes: > >> On Thu, Mar 02, 2017 at 05:36:17PM -0800, Junio C Hamano wrote: >> ... >>>> Is that on purpose? >>> >>> No, it's a mere oversight (as I do not think I never even thought >>> about special casing binary >>> files from day one, it is unlikely that you would find _any_ old >>> version of Git that behaves >>> differently). >> >> The email focuses on "-G", and I think it is wrong to look in binary >> files there, as "grep in diff" does not make sense for a binary file >> that we would refuse to diff. > > Yeah, I agree. > >> But the subject also mentions "-S". I always assumed it was intentional >> to look in binary files there, as it is searching for a pure byte >> sequence. I would not mind an option to disable that, but I think the >> default should remain on. > > As the feature was built to be one of the core ingredients necessary > towards the 'ideal SCM' envisioned in > > <http://public-inbox.org/git/Pine.LNX.4.58.0504150753440.7211@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > "-S" is about finding "a block of text". It was merely an oversight > that we didn't add explicit code to ignore binary when we introduced > the concept of "is this text? is it worth finding things in and > diffing binary files?". > > I do agree that it may be too late and/or disruptive to change its > behaviour now, as people may grew expectations different from the > original motivation and design, though. Thanks both for the encouraging answers. I'll try to come up with patches in the next couple of weeks for the following changes: "log -G": disable looking in binaries "log -S": add option to switch looking into binaries, defaults to true Thomas