Re: Can't find the revelant commit with git-log

René Scharfe [off-list ref] writes:

Perhaps we should check my underlying assumption first: is it reasonable
to expect a git log command to show the same commits with and without a
path spec that covers all changed files?

The simplest case would be "git log ." vs "git log" from the root level of
the repository, right?  Traditionally, the former is "please show _one_
simplest history that can explain how the current commit came to be"
(i.e. with merge simplification), while the latter is "please list
everything that is behind the current commit" (i.e. without), I think.

It feels unintuitive, but my understanding of the rationale behind the
design is that, the expectation Linus had when he first did the pathspec
limited traversal was that most of the time "git log $path" is used to get
an explanation.  It follows that having to say "git log --simplify $path"
would have been a nuisance, so "with pathspec, we simplify" was thought to
be a reasonable default.