Re: [PATCH] diff: resurrect the traditional empty "diff --git" behaviour

[Jeff King <peff@peff.net>]

On Fri, Aug 31, 2007 at 01:13:42PM -0700, Junio C Hamano wrote:

> If you set diff.autorefreshindex configuration variable, it
> squelches the empty "diff --git" output, and at the end of the
> command, it automatically runs "update-index --refresh" without
> even bothering the user.  In other words, with the configuration
> variable set, people who do not care about the cache-dirtyness
> do not even have to see the warning.

Nice. This is much more sane behavior, IMHO, and I think it should make
everyone happy.

>  Same here.  This patch saw only very light testing, but I
>  personally think is a sane thing to do before 1.5.3 final.

Passes my light testing as well, but I have a feeling we just tested the
same things...;)

One question on the implementation (and remember that I am somewhat
ignorant of the structure of this part of the code, so the answer may be
"it's too ugly"): is there a good reason to refresh _after_ the diff? It
seems like when we are looking through the working tree and index the
first time, we notice that the stat information doesn't match; why can't
we update it then? That would save an extra working tree traversal.

-Peff