Hi, On Fri, 2 Jan 2009, Linus Torvalds wrote: > So I was hoping for something else than a single "in this case patience > diff works really well". I was hoping to see what it does in real life. Funnily, I think the test case you sent me is a pretty good example. Look at this hunk (without patience diff): @@ -4205,25 +4205,25 @@ out: */ static int nfs4_xdr_dec_setattr(struct rpc_rqst *rqstp, __be32 *p, struct nfs_se { - struct xdr_stream xdr; - struct compound_hdr hdr; - int status; - - xdr_init_decode(&xdr, &rqstp->rq_rcv_buf, p); - status = decode_compound_hdr(&xdr, &hdr); - if (status) - goto out; - status = decode_putfh(&xdr); - if (status) - goto out; - status = decode_setattr(&xdr, res); - if (status) - goto out; + struct xdr_stream xdr; + struct compound_hdr hdr; + int status; + + xdr_init_decode(&xdr, &rqstp->rq_rcv_buf, p); ... and then it goes on with the whole reindented function. Compare this to the same hunk _with_ patience diff: @@ -4205,25 +4205,25 @@ out: */ static int nfs4_xdr_dec_setattr(struct rpc_rqst *rqstp, __be32 *p, struct nfs_se { - struct xdr_stream xdr; - struct compound_hdr hdr; - int status; + struct xdr_stream xdr; + struct compound_hdr hdr; + int status; - xdr_init_decode(&xdr, &rqstp->rq_rcv_buf, p); - status = decode_compound_hdr(&xdr, &hdr); - if (status) - goto out; - status = decode_putfh(&xdr); - if (status) - goto out; - status = decode_setattr(&xdr, res); - if (status) - goto out; + xdr_init_decode(&xdr, &rqstp->rq_rcv_buf, p); + status = decode_compound_hdr(&xdr, &hdr); ... and again the rest is reindented code. The difference? The common empty line. I actually find it more readable to have the separation between the declarations and the code also in the diff. This is just a very feeble example, but you get the idea from there. Oh, you might object that the empty line is not unique. But actually it is, because the patience diff recurses into ever smaller line ranges until it finally comes to such a small range that the empty line _is_ unique. And in my analysis of the complexity, I stupidly left out that recursion part. So: patience diff is _substantially_ more expensive than Myers'. > But when I tried it on the kernel archive, I get a core dump. I also got this trying on the git.git repository, with commit be3cfa85([PATCH] Diff-tree-helper take two.) Funnily, I almost got there trying the same before sending the first revision, but I got impatient and stopped early. Tsk, tsk. Now I tried with my complete clone of git.git together with all of my topic branches, and it runs through without segmentation fault. Patch follows. Ciao, Dscho -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html