Sergey Organov wrote: > Junio C Hamano <gitster@xxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > Matthieu Moy <Matthieu.Moy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes: > > > >> https://public-inbox.org/git/51E3DC47.70107@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx/ > >> > >> Essentially, Stefan Beller was using 'git show --format="%ad"' and > >> expecting it to show only the author date, and for merge commits it > >> also showed the patch (--cc). I suggested -s and noticed that the > >> option wasn't easily discoverable, hence the patch series to better > >> document it and add --no-patch as a synonym. > >> > >> Probably I did not get all the subtleties of the different kinds of > >> outputs. I guess I considered the output of diff to be the one > >> specified by --format plus the patch (not considering --raw, --stat & > >> friends), hence "get only the output specified by --format" and > >> "disable the patch" were synonym to me. > > So --no-patch, if it were made to disable only --patch from the > beginning, would still serve the purpose of solving of the original > problem, right? Please notice that --cc produces no output without > --patch. Thus, making --no-patch a synonym for -s was a mistake in the > first place that leaked through review process at that time, and > > git show --format="%ad" --no-patch > > will still work the same way even if we fix --no-patch to disable > --patch only. Indeed. > > Thanks for double checking. It matches my recollection that we (you > > the author and other reviewers as well) added "--no-patch" back then > > to mean "no output from diff machinery, exactly the same as '-s' but > > use a name that is more discoverable". > > > >> Looking more closely, it's > >> rather clear to me they are not, and that > >> > >> git show --raw --patch --no-patch > >> > >> should be equivalent to > >> > >> git show --raw > > > > Yeah. If this were 10 years ago and we were designing from scratch, > > the "no output from diff machinery, more discoverable alias for > > '-s'" would have been "--silent" or "--squelch" and we would made > > any "--no-<format>" to defeat only "--<format>". > > > > It is a different matter if we can safely change what "--no-patch" > > means _now_. Given that "--no-patch" was introduced for the > > explicit purpose of giving "-s" a name that is easier to remember, > > and given that in the 10 years since we did so, we may have acquired > > at least a few more end users of Git than we used to have, hopefully > > your change have helped them discover and learn to use "--no-patch" > > to defeat any "--<format>" they gave earlier as initial options in > > their script, which will be broken and need to be updated to use a > > much less discoverable "-s". > > Fortunately, whoever used --no-patch are very unlikely to actually rely > on it being a synonym for "-s", as it was always enough for them that > --no-patch disables --patch, that will still hold after the fix. That's right. And let's be realistic for a moment: nobody actually does `git diff-files --raw`, as that's essentially the same as `cat /dev/null`: a no-op. The reason `--no-patch` was added was to silenced the diff output of commands that show a diff *in addition* to something else by default, like `git show`, and `git show --no-patch` will keep working fine. Why would anybody do `git show --raw --no-patch` when they can do `git show --no-patch`? Yet once again we are doing premature defense for a set of users that probably don't even exist. > Finally, this safety concern is even less attractive provided recent > "-s" fix changed behavior more aggressively yet gets no such resistance. Exactly. --- And this is yet another example of why git's UI is stuck and cannot (and probably will never) be fixed. Cheers. -- Felipe Contreras
