Hi Junio, On Sun, 19 May 2019, Junio C Hamano wrote: > Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes: > > > On Wed, 15 May 2019, Junio C Hamano wrote: > > > >> Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@xxxxxx> writes: > >> > >> I was imagining what would happen if we treat _everything_ in the two > >> directories being compared by "difftool --dir-diff --no-index" as if it > >> is tracked. > > > > Isn't this exactly what `git difftool --no-index` *without* `--dir-diff` > > does already (although without copying or hardlinking or symlinking any > > files)? > > If that is the case, then I would imagine that running that command > for the user, instead of refusing to work, would give a more > pleasant end-user experience. No? The elephant in the room is that a user might think that --dir-diff makes copies (as promised) and lets their difftool clobber them files happily, only to find out that they clobbered the original files. And since they asked for `--no-index`, chances are that those files really are not tracked, so now they do not even have a way to revert that clobbering. Seriously, I'd rather not DWIM `--no-index --dir-diff` to essentially do `--no-index --no-dir-diff`. Ciao, Dscho > Unless we anticipate that we might dwim incorrectly and mistake a > request to compare two things, to which the distinction between > tracked and untracked matters, as a request to compare two > directories that are not under Git control, that is. If such an > incorrect dwim were a possibility, then it is helpful to refuse with > "when comparing two non-git-controlled directories, you cannot use > the '--dir-diff' mode", as that would not silently give an incorrect > output to the users. > > In any case, all of the above can be left for future improvements. > Getting close to the final, I think it is preferrable to have a > "refuse to stop early" (i.e. the patch that is already in 'next') > instead of "do what the user meant" whose implementation may become > more involved (and error prone). > > Thanks. > >
