On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 4:30 PM Bryan Turner <bturner@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 4:13 PM Elijah Newren <newren@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Hi John,
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 3:57 PM McRoberts, John <John.McRoberts@xxxxxx> wrote:
> > >
> > > I am responsible for generating a list of all files changed between two
> > > successive releases of software. I was using 'git diff' but have run into a
> > > problem.
> > >
> > > Consider the following situation: A development branch comes off of commit A
> > > and files are changed three times. A tag (REL1) is placed on the third
> > > commit. Then the branch is merged back to master. At this point, master's
> > > HEAD is at C (and it remains there). Two development branches are created
> > > off of master, the first of which is not important here. In the second one,
> > > there are files changed and a tag (REL2) applied.
> > >
> > >
> > > ---------------------[I]
> > >
> > > / {dev branch}
> > >
> > > /
> > >
> > > /
> > > {master branch}
> > > /
> > > [A] ---------------------------------[B]------------------------------->[C]
> > > master <HEAD>
> > > \ filelist 6 / \
> > > \ /
> > > \
> > > \ /
> > > \
> > > \ /
> > > \
> > > \ {development branch} /
> > > \
> > > \------->[D]----------------------->[E]-------------------[F]
> > > \------[G]--------[H]
> > > REL1
> > > REL2
> > > fileset 1 fileset 2 fileset 3
> > > fileset 4 fileset 5
> > >
> > > At this point, I run
> > > 'git diff -m --first-parent --pretty=fuller --decorate=short
> > > --name-only REL2..REL2'
> >
> > Wow, we really, really need to throw errors and warnings when people
> > use crazy range operators with diff.[1][2] What version of git are
> > you using that accepts --decorate=short as an argument to `git diff`?
> > And why in the world does git diff accept --first-parent or
> > --pretty=fuller?!? That's insane for git-diff to swallow that.
> > (#leftoverbits?) Also, I think you meant `REL1` one of the two times
> > you wrote `REL2`, which makes me suspect you may have done some
> > copy-edit-paste and didn't try this actual command.
> >
> > > I expect to see only filesets 4 and 5 listed. I also see filesets 1, 2 and
> > > 3 showing up. This means that the git diff command is showing files that,in
> > > fact, did not change between the two tags. By the way, I verified with a
> > > file by file comparison that under REL2 and REL1, the files represented by
> > > filesets 1, 2 and 3 had identical contents.
> >
> > From your description, I assume you actually ran something like
> > git diff --name-only REL1..REL2
>
> Did you mean REL1...REL2 (3 dots)? 2 dots (REL1..REL2) is identical to
> no dots (REL1 REL2), per the documentation for "git diff":
>
> git diff [<options>] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...]
>
> This is to view the changes between two arbitrary <commit>.
>
> git diff [<options>] <commit>..<commit> [--] [<path>...]
>
> This is synonymous to the previous form. If <commit> on one
> side is omitted, it will have the same effect
> as using HEAD instead.
>
> (Forgive me if I'm mistaken here!)
Yes, thanks. In trying to explain how two and three dots behave
contrary to expectation for git diff, I mess up two versus three dots.
That's kind of embarrassing...
> > which compares REL2 to the merge base of REL1 and REL2 (yes, this is
> > totally counter-intuitive to a large percentage of the git userbase,
> > but it is well documented and hard to change). Also from your
> > description, what you seem to want is
> > git diff --name-only REL1 REL2
...though at least I was smart enough to suggest something without
dots, which is the only sane way to use git-diff. ;-)
