Subject: Re: Why doesn't `git log -m` imply `-p`?

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 06 May 2021 09:27:30 +0900

Sergey Organov <[email-masked]> writes:

> No, I don't mean it. The idea is to let -m be alias for
> "--diff-merges=on -p",...

Ahhhh, that makes a whole lot of difference.  Thanks.

> If, on the other hand, it's just me who fundamentally misunderstands the
> design, then I need to be corrected fast, before I make significant
> damage.

No, it was I who was confused, as I somehow incorrectly thoguht that
your plan was to make "-m" identical to "--diff-merges=on".

But if your plan is to make

    "git log -m"    (no other option)
    "git log -m -p"

behave identically to "git log --diff-merges=on -p", and similarly
make

    "git log -m --stat"
    "git log -m --raw"

behave identically to "git log --diff-merges=on --stat/--raw", I
think that such a design makes quite a lot of sense.

It will still keep the purity of "--diff-merges=<choice>" (that is,
it only is about if/how a merge is expressed in some form of diff),
while solving the longstanding usability issue of "-m" that led to
Alex's "when a user says -m, diff output is expected", that came
quite early in this thread.