Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes: > On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:41:39AM +0300, Sergey Organov wrote: > >> > Here's a re-roll taking into account the discussion so far: >> > >> > - the escape hatch option name is flipped to "--no-diff-merges" (with >> > "--diff-merges" matching "-m") >> >> Rather than being just a synonym for -m, is there a chance for >> "--diff-merges" implementation to be turned to output diff to the first >> parent only, no matter if --first-parent is active or not? >> >> Alternatively, may it have a parameter such as "-m parent-number" of >> "git cherry-pick" being set to "1" by default? > > Yes, I agree that would be a useful feature, but I don't think it needs > to be part of this series. It could be implemented as --diff-merges=1 to > show only the one against the first parent, or as its own option. But we > can add that on top. > >> This -m output of diffs to all the parents is in fact primary source of >> confusion for me, even over all these mind-blowing inter-dependencies >> between --first-parent, --cc, -c, -m, -p and what not. Who ever needs >> these (potentially huge) diffs against other parents, anyway? > > I've used "-m" second-parent diffs occasionally for hunting down > mismerges, etc, but I agree that most of the time you just want to see > the diff against the first parent. > >> Introduction of this new option is a great opportunity for improvement >> that would be a pity to miss. > > Adding an optional value to the flag is something we can do later. We > would miss the opportunity for "--diff-merges" to default to > "--diff-merges=1", but I'm not sure I'd want to do that anyway. Having > it be consistent with "-m" seems less confusing to me, and it is already > too late to change that. > > If we want an option that defaults to "1", we can give it a new name. > The only thing that is lost now is that --diff-merges would already be > taken. :) But I think I'd probably call such an option "--diff-parents" > or something like that anyway. Yeah, I see your point, thanks for considering! What I in fact have in mind is something like: --diff-merges[=<parent-number>|c|cc|all] to have a single point of definition of the needed format of merges representation. Then comes the question of the default. "all" is what'd make it behave as "-m" behaves now. If it's too late for --diff-merges to have different default, could the default possibly be a configuration option rather than yet another command-line option? -- Sergey
