Re: [OT] org and diff

[Samuel Wales]

marcin> One question I'd ask is: how important a legible diff is to
you?  I keep my Org files in Git, too, but if /I/ know what was
changed, I just don't care about diff going nuts and I treat it as
(more or less) Git's internal implementation detail.

for org, i mostly use git for reviewing changes.  it is only one step
more sophisticated than saving old and diffing.

i have lots of tools for improving diff, but this intermingling
problem is a showstopper in some cases, like right now where i have
spent months trying to make sense of months of changes to org files
that have not been entered into git.  i.e. i did not enter every few
days as normal.  i find reviewing changes to be valuable.  every once
in a while i discover data corruption or something that i forgot etc.

i wonder if diff, or difftastic, could be taught or postprocessed to
do merely one thing: try to preserve stuff between "^\\*+ ".  that is
probably too optimistic, but imagine a --preserve-between option.


On 11/21/22, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
> incidentally, if you want empty hunk headers, you can do this at least
> in my version of git:
>
>       xfuncname = " "
>
> but idk why it works and i had had it commented out.
>
>
> On 11/21/22, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
>> p.s.  hunk header munging does not unmingle [i.e. group changes by org
>> header in magit status buffer diffs] :(.  but it is true that what i
>> want is some kind of preference given by magit to org entries as
>> demarcated by org headings.
>>
>> idk if what i want is in principle possible or not in standard diff or
>> git diff.  that is, idk if they could be patched to accept an arg that
>> would allow you to specify that org entries should be preserved if
>> possible or something like that.
>>
>> great to know difftastic can in principle be coded to do what i want,
>> however.  so maybe soetime you could tell git to use.
>>
>> org hunk headers are rather nice looking.  on the other hand, it gets
>> the previous header, even if not the parent header.  i think this is
>> why i had the impression that git was in principle incapable of org
>> hunk header text of the type i wanted.  but hunk header text is not
>> something i use a lot.  it's rather nice looking, but in some cases i
>> prefer empty hunk headers.
>>
>> On 11/12/22, Samuel Wales <samologist@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> i have a very old version of Magit, for reasons I won't get into.
>>> Fancier diff settings might be differnet or not available.
>>>
>>> But something drives me crazy.  Probably not too Org-related, but it
>>> might be.  I just want to know why, is all.
>>>
>>> I have a 24k line org file, and it's not that complex wrt levels.  2
>>> or 3 levels with odd stars only.  various types of content.
>>>
>>> someplace in it, is an entry with a  234-item plain list.  if i try to
>>> move this entry, and make no other changes, diff goes insane.  if i
>>> try to refile this entry to a different org file, diff similarly goes
>>> insane, with the - part.  only that change.
>>>
>>> ok, what it does is, intersperse or mingle entries.  so suppose i want
>>> to stage this one tiny little change, namely moving one entry [the one
>>> with the large plain list] to a different location in the same file.
>>> even if i move it really distantly.
>>>
>>> i.e. i want to put the - and the + of the move to the staging area in
>>> magit.  unstaged changes should then not have this file in it at all
>>> after the staging operations.
>>>
>>> then, basically, staged changes will have this move.
>>>
>>> as a user, i want diff to make this two hunks, a big - and a big +.
>>> but diff mingles parts of another entry or entries with this list, so
>>> that it is scattered all over the diff.  to get the result i want
>>> requires tons of intra-hunk stage operations.  at best.
>>>
>>> so, what aspect of diff or org is triggering this kind of behavior?
>>> what is it that diff needs to understand about org, or what minimality
>>> etc. settings does it want to create a better diff?
>>>
>>> i know org has lots of similar lines [e.g. planning headers with
>>> scheduled dates that are identical].  but still, this is a nontrivial
>>> size org file, with no other changes that i made. diff's insanity
>>> still occurs even if i move the entry distantly.
>>>
>>> i am of course aware of histogram, patience, etc. and that git diff
>>> has a few experimental choices of options.  also long ago i read diff
>>> manual with its discussion of end of file beg of file and minimality
>>> with --minimal and all that stuff.
>>>
>>> however, here, though, i am mostly interested in specifically what
>>> diff's, or git diff's, or magit's, /deal/ is.  in /this/ case.
>>>
>>> where does it get off doing that?  everything else is the same, so why
>>> is it keying on the wrong thing?
>>>
>>> does it think i made the changes as it presents them, or does it go
>>> for some other goal like minimality or speed and not really care what
>>> i did?  is it because it e.g. ignores end or beg of file or so?  or is
>>> it getting confused by some line?
>>>
>>> i have of course heard of merge something or others.  which presumably
>>> tell diff about the structure of files or so.  like, the fact that the
>>> planning line always follows the header.  or perhaps i am imagining
>>> this kind of tool.
>>>
>>> now, whether i can mitigte it is interesting /after/ that.  my
>>> paleolithic magit version might not be capable, but still.
>>>
>>> --
>>> The Kafka Pandemic
>>>
>>> A blog about science, health, human rights, and misopathy:
>>> https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> The Kafka Pandemic
>>
>> A blog about science, health, human rights, and misopathy:
>> https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com
>>
>
>
> --
> The Kafka Pandemic
>
> A blog about science, health, human rights, and misopathy:
> https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com
>


-- 
The Kafka Pandemic

A blog about science, health, human rights, and misopathy:
https://thekafkapandemic.blogspot.com