Re: [PATCH 2/2] format-patch: allow for independent diff & range-diff options

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

Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <avarab@gmail.com> writes:

>> What prevents you from using `sq_dequote_to_argv()`?
>
> I mean not just nasty in terms of implementation, yeah we could do it,
> but also a nasty UX for things like --word-diff-regex. I.e. instead of:
>
>     --range-diff-word-diff-regex='[0-9"]'
>
> You need:
>
>     --range-diff-opts="--word-diff-regex='[0-9\"]'"
>
> Now admittedly that in itself isn't very painful *in this case*, but in
> terms of precedent I really dislike that option, i.e. git having some
> mode where I need to work to escape input to pass to another command.

In addition, sq_dequote are meant to be used on quoted string we
internally produce; I do not think we want to promise that it is
safe to use on a random string that comes from end users.

In any case, I tend to agree with the conclusion in the downthread
by Dscho that we should just clearly mark that invocations of the
"format-patch --range-diff" command with additional diff options is
an experimental feature that may not do anything sensible in the
upcoming release, and declare that the UI to pass diff options to
affect only the range-diff part may later be invented.  IOW, I am
coming a bit stronger than Dscho's suggestion in that we should not
even pretend that we aimed to make the options used for range-diff
customizable when driven from format-patch in the upcoming release,
or aimed to make --range-diff option compatible with other diff
options given to the format-patch command.

I had to delay -rc2 to see these last minute tweaks come to some
reasonable place to stop at, and I do not think we want to delay the
final any longer or destablizing it further by piling last minute
undercooked changes on top.