Jeff King <peff@xxxxxxxx> writes: > So ideally we'd have an input format that encapsulates that extra > context data and provides some mechanism for quoting. And it turns out > we do: the --raw diff format. Funny. The raw diff format indeed was designed as an interchange format from various "compare two sets of things" front-ends (like diff-files, diff-cache, and diff-tree) that emits the raw format, to be read by "diff-helper" (initially called "diff-tree-helper") that takes the raw format and - matches removed and added paths with similar contents to detect renames and copies - computes the output in various formats including "patch". So I guess we came a full circle, finally ;-). Looking in the archive for messages exchanged between junkio@ and torvalds@ mentioning diff before 2005-05-30 finds some interesting gems. https://lore.kernel.org/git/7v1x8zsamn.fsf_-_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/
