RFE: Split diff.noprefix for git-diff and git-format-patch (was: http-backend: give a hint that web browser access is not supported)

On Thursday 2021-12-02 08:38, Junio C Hamano wrote:

quoted

 http-backend.c          | 36 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++-----
 t/t5561-http-backend.sh | 46 ++++++++++++++++++++---------------------
 2 files changed, 54 insertions(+), 28 deletions(-)

diff --git http-backend.c http-backend.c
index 3d6e2ff17f..f7858e9c49 100644
--- http-backend.c
+++ http-backend.c

Please fix your format-patch settings.  The comparisons should be
between a/http-backend.c and b/http-backend.c and not between the
same path at the top-level.

You are right. But..

In interactive git-diff invocations, prefixless is the arguably desired mode,
so as to facilitate xterm copy-and-paste of the pathname (since a/ does not
exist, you would want to have it in the copypaste operation anywhere).

I can see why git-format-patch would make use of the "diff.noprefix"
config directive, but equally, it's a bug that diff.noprefix has such
broad implications and that there is no way to distinguish between
diff and format-patch.