Re: Incorrect man page for git-diff
From: Junio C Hamano <hidden>
Date: 2016-06-15 22:55:33
Manlio Perillo [off-list ref] writes:
I'm not sure the man page is wrong and should be changed: -- usage: git diff [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]] [--] [<path>...] ++ usage: git diff [<options>] [<commit> [<commit>]]
Comparison of two blob objects works entirely in different way (it is not even recursively comparing two tree-shaped things). I do not think this mode is common enough to deserve to be in the short help text, but it should be in the documentation, perhaps like this patch, I think. Documentation/git-diff.txt | 9 +++++++-- 1 file changed, 7 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git c/Documentation/git-diff.txt w/Documentation/git-diff.txt
index f8d0819..f8c0601 100644
--- c/Documentation/git-diff.txt
+++ w/Documentation/git-diff.txt@@ -12,6 +12,7 @@ SYNOPSIS 'git diff' [options] [<commit>] [--] [<path>...] 'git diff' [options] --cached [<commit>] [--] [<path>...] 'git diff' [options] <commit> <commit> [--] [<path>...] +'git diff' [options] <blob> <blob> 'git diff' [options] [--no-index] [--] <path> <path> DESCRIPTION
@@ -55,6 +56,11 @@ directories. This behavior can be forced by --no-index. This is to view the changes between two arbitrary <commit>. +'git diff' [options] <blob> <blob>:: + + This form is to view the differences between the raw + contents of two blob objects. + 'git diff' [--options] <commit>..<commit> [--] [<path>...]:: This is synonymous to the previous form. If <commit> on
@@ -72,8 +78,7 @@ directories. This behavior can be forced by --no-index. Just in case if you are doing something exotic, it should be noted that all of the <commit> in the above description, except in the last two forms that use ".." notations, can be any -<tree>. The third form ('git diff <commit> <commit>') can also -be used to compare two <blob> objects. +<tree>. For a more complete list of ways to spell <commit>, see "SPECIFYING REVISIONS" section in linkgit:gitrevisions[7].