Re: Using "git log" to find the files patched at the same time as a named file

Zack Brown [off-list ref] writes:

quoted

... What about something like this:

"Without this flag, "git log -p <path>..." shows commits that touch
the specified paths, but it only includes the diffs from those commits

I would say "s/but/and/", because it is more natural that you get the
"limited" view after you explicitly stated that you are "only interested
in these things" by giving pathspecs.

quoted

that affected those specified paths, regardless of whether other paths
were changed in those same commits. With "git log --full-diff -p
<path>...", git still only reports commits that touch the specified
path, but now it also includes the diffs that affected any other paths
changed in those same commits."

And "but" on the second line from the bottom makes sense---by giving the
option, you are telling it to work differently.

quoted

Would that be an improvement?

Surely.  I would suspect that people would go even further.  "-p" is not
very special (notice I used --name-status in my example).

Also I think the description should start with what it _does_, not with
what happens without it.

So how about this?

diff --git a/Documentation/git-log.txt b/Documentation/git-log.txt
index 0e39bb6..5dd1c0c 100644
--- a/Documentation/git-log.txt
+++ b/Documentation/git-log.txt

@@ -49,11 +49,14 @@ include::diff-options.txt[]

       commit was reached.

 --full-diff::
-       Without this flag, "git log -p <path>..." shows commits that
-       touch the specified paths, and diffs about the same specified
-       paths.  With this, the full diff is shown for commits that touch
-       the specified paths; this means that "<path>..." limits only
-       commits, and doesn't limit diff for those commits.
+       Show all changes, even outside the given pathspecs.
++
+Pathspecs <path>... given to "git log [<options>] <path>..."  limit the
+output to the commits that touch the specified paths.  When options to
+show changes introduced by these commits (e.g. "-p", "--name-only") are
+given, the output of the changes are also limited to the specified paths.
+This option lifts the latter limit and tells "git log" to include all
+changes, even the ones outside of the given pathspecs.

 --follow::
       Continue listing the history of a file beyond renames.