Re: Git diff-file bug?

[Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>]

Scott Batchelor <scott.batchelor@gmail.com> writes:

> I'm fairly new to git and am witnessing some strange behavior with git
> that I suspect may be a bug. Can anyone set my mind at rest.
>
> Every so often (I've not quite figured out the exact set of
> circumstances yet) 

Figure that circumstances out.  That is the key to the issue.
Something in your workflow is futzing with the inode data of the
files in your working tree behind your back.  It sometimes is a
virus scanner.

"git diff-*" plumbing commands are meant to be used after running
"git update-index --refresh" once in the program and when the caller
of these commands (in your case, gitk) knows that any change in the
information returned by lstat(2) on the paths in the working tree
files since that call indicate real changes to the files.

"git status" internally runs an equivalent of "--refresh" before it
goes to find changes, so after running it, until that something
smudges the inode data behind your back, "gitk" will not be
confused.