Re: [GIT PULL] ext4 update

[Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>]

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008, Theodore Tso wrote:
> 
> That's because you are doing a diff stat of changes that haven't been
> checked in yet.  I was doing a "git log -p origin.. | diffstat -p1",
> and in that incantation you definitely do need the -p1 to diffstat.

You should *always* use "-p1" to diffstat, because if you don't, diffstat 
just makes up the paths totally (the same way you should always use "-p1" 
to GNU 'patch').

The fact is, diffstat just guesses, based on the prefix. But those guesses 
will be totally bogus at times, especially if you have newly created files 
(I _think_ that is because one of the pathnames in the diff is /dev/null, 
and that will apparently throw off the guesses).

So if you don't use an explicit "-p1", diffstat will guess the -p level 
from the longest common path prefix, _but_ get that wrong for some paths 
anyway, so sometimes you'll see the "a/" prefix etc.

Of course, rather than using diffstat at all, just do something like

	git diff --stat origin..

instead.

		Linus