git diff: improve range handling

When git diff is given a symmetric difference A...B, it chooses
some merge base from the two specified commits (as documented).

This fails, however, if there is *no* merge base: instead, you
see the differences between A and B, which is certainly not what
is expected.

Moreover, if additional revisions are specified on the command
line ("git diff A...B C"), the results get a bit weird:

 * If there is a symmetric difference merge base, this is used
   as the left side of the diff.  The last final ref is used as
   the right side.
 * If there is no merge base, the symmetric status is completely
   lost.  We will produce a combined diff instead.

Similar weirdness occurs if you use, e.g., "git diff C A...B D".
Likewise, using multiple two-dot ranges, or tossing extra
revision specifiers into the command line with two-dot ranges,
or mixing two and three dot ranges, all produce nonsense.

To avoid all this, add a routine to catch the range cases and
verify that that the arguments make sense.  As a side effect,
produce a warning showing *which* merge base is being used when
there are multiple choices; die if there is no merge base.

Signed-off-by: Chris Torek <chris.torek@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

1 files changed, 91 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/t/t4068-diff-symmetric.sh b/t/t4068-diff-symmetric.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000000..31d17a5af0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/t/t4068-diff-symmetric.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,91 @@
+#!/bin/sh
+
+test_description='behavior of diff with symmetric-diff setups'
+
+. ./test-lib.sh
+
+# build these situations:
+#  - normal merge with one merge base (br1...b2r);
+#  - criss-cross merge ie 2 merge bases (br1...master);
+#  - disjoint subgraph (orphan branch, br3...master).
+#
+#     B---E   <-- master
+#    / \ /
+#   A   X
+#    \ / \
+#     C---D--G   <-- br1
+#      \    /
+#       ---F   <-- br2
+#
+#  H  <-- br3
+#
+# We put files into a few commits so that we can verify the
+# output as well.
+
+test_expect_success setup '
+	git commit --allow-empty -m A &&
+	echo b >b &&
+	git add b &&
+	git commit -m B &&
+	git checkout -b br1 HEAD^ &&
+	echo c >c &&
+	git add c &&
+	git commit -m C &&
+	git tag commit-C &&
+	git merge -m D master &&
+	git tag commit-D &&
+	git checkout master &&
+	git merge -m E commit-C &&
+	git checkout -b br2 commit-C &&
+	echo f >f &&
+	git add f &&
+	git commit -m F &&
+	git checkout br1 &&
+	git merge -m G br2 &&
+	git checkout --orphan br3 &&
+	git commit -m H
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with one merge base' '
+	git diff commit-D...br1 >tmp &&
+	tail -n 1 tmp >actual &&
+	echo +f >expect &&
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
+# The output (in tmp) can have +b or +c depending
+# on which merge base (commit B or C) is picked.
+# It should have one of those two, which comes out
+# to seven lines.
+test_expect_success 'diff with two merge bases' '
+	git diff br1...master >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_line_count = 7 tmp &&
+	test_line_count = 1 err
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with no merge bases' '
+	test_must_fail git diff br2...br3 >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_i18ngrep "fatal: br2...br3: no merge base" err
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with too many symmetric differences' '
+	test_must_fail git diff br1...master br2...br3 >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_i18ngrep "usage" err
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with symmetric difference and extraneous arg' '
+	test_must_fail git diff master br1...master >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_i18ngrep "usage" err
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with two ranges' '
+	test_must_fail git diff master br1..master br2..br3 >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_i18ngrep "usage" err
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff with ranges and extra arg' '
+	test_must_fail git diff master br1..master commit-D >tmp 2>err &&
+	test_i18ngrep "usage" err
+'
+
+test_done