Re: Git help for kernel archeology, suppress diffs caused by CVS keyword expansion

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> On Sun, 22 Jul 2007, Jon Smirl wrote:
>>
>> It would really be useful if git diff had an option for suppressing
>> diffs caused by CVS keyword expansion.
>
> I really think it's not a "git diff" issue, but it might be a "import" 
> issue.
>
> IOW, I think you'd be a *lot* better off just not importing those
> things in the first place (which is what CVS does internally), or
> possibly importing them as two trees (ie you'd have the "non-log"
> version and the "log expansion" version, so that you can track and
> compare both).

One problem is that those strings more often than not are involved in
some magic computation, like placing version and date information into
extracted output.  While an import of the unexpanded version is really
the sanest option, it might render the resulting code inoperable.

CVS diff itself reports those differences, too (and it makes for a
good quota of merge problems even in CVS), so it is not like we are in
bad company here.

Uh, strike that.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum