Re: git: how to produce context diffs?

On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 15:27:20 +0100
Jakub Narebski [off-list ref] wrote:

Bruno Haible wrote:

quoted

Is this a bug in git-diff? The git-diff-files.html says:

  " When the environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF is not set ...
    For example, if you prefer context diff:
    GIT_DIFF_OPTS=-c git-diff-index -p HEAD  "

This doesn't work for me with git-1.4.4:

Yes, the bug in documentation, I think. There is an option '-c' to git-diff,
but it means "combined diff" (for merges), not "context diff".

Indeed.  That documentation predates built-in diff completely.

It appears the only valid options now are "-u XX" and "--unified=XX".
These options are never passed to diff, but rather used to control
the internal diff.  Strangely, it appears that gitk is even passing
incorrect parameters via GIT_DIFF_OPTS.

Unless i've really missed something, the above documentation should be
reworked to remove mention of running diff altogether, and should mention
that the GIT_DIFF_OPTS only has two valid settings.