Subject: Re: [PATCH] doc: clarify how -S works

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2009 08:42:12 -0800

Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:

> I wonder if "gitdiffcore" is a little scary for new people who just want
> to use "-S", but hopefully point (1) above will get rid of most of the
> confusion, and those who follow the link want to learn all about diff.

As I mentioned in the other message, what --pickaxe achieves is very
different from what people would naturally want from --search, an
option that does not exist.

I do not mind a patch that adds a diffcore transformation that internally
generates a diff and searches the string given by the user in it, and
triggers that with --search option.  The transformation should come just
after (or before) the pickaxe in the call sequence inside diffcore_std();
name it diffcore_search() or something.

In retrospect, because --pickaxe was designed primarily for Porcelain use,
it was a mistake for it to have taken a short-and-sweet -S synonym.

> diff --git a/Documentation/diff-options.txt b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> index 813a7b1..9276fae 100644
> --- a/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> +++ b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
> @@ -176,7 +176,10 @@ override configuration settings.
>  	number.
>  
>  -S<string>::
> -	Look for differences that contain the change in <string>.
> +	Look for differences that introduce or remove an instance of
> +	<string>. Note that this is different than the string simply
> +	appearing in diff output; see the 'pickaxe' entry in
> +	linkgit:gitdiffcore[7] for more details.

Look for differences that change the number of occurrences of <string>?