Subject: Re: feature request: excluding files/paths from "git grep"

From: Junio C Hamano <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2015 10:33:53 -0800

Jeff King <[email-masked]> writes:

> If it's an attribute of the file, and not the request, maybe
> gitattributes would be a better fit. You can already do this with:
>
>   *.foo -diff
>
> in your .gitattributes file, though that _also_ marks the files as "not
> for diffing", which may not be desired. There's not a separate "grep"
> attribute, but I do not think it would be unreasonable to add one.

I have a vague recollection of having a discussion that started with
something like this:

    "diff" is named as if it is only for "diff" for historical
    reasons, but it is about "do we want to treat its raw contents
    as text?"

I do not recall its conclusion, but it it were "Yes, that is what it
means", then it might be reasonable to:

 - have "git grep" ignore paths marked with -diff by default
   (perhaps "-a" option to disable, just like GNU)

 - have "git grep" pay attention to diff.textconv and search in the
   result of textconv filter.