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This series of patches attempt to give --interactive/--patch compatible builtins ("add", "commit", "checkout", "reset", "restore" and "stash") better support and nicer experience for configuring how many context lines are shown in diffs through a variety of ways.

Prior to these patches, the user could not choose how many context lines they saw in --patch commands (apart from one workaround by using GIT_DIFF_OPTS=-u<number> ..., however this isn't a good user experience or a persistent solution). Additionally, the behaviour around reading from the diff.context and diff.interHunkContext configs was also inconsistent with other diff generating commands such as "log -p".

The summarised changes below hopefully make this experience better and fix some inconsistencies:

  • diff.context and diff.interHunkContext configs are now respected by --patch compatible commands
  • --unified and --inter-hunk-context command line options have been added to --patch compatible commands (which take prescendence over file configs)
  • "add" and "commit" in --interactive mode now expose a new "context" subcommand which configures the amount of context lines you wish to see in subsequent diffs generated from other subcommands such as "patch" or "diff"

The original discussion for this can be read at:

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@NinjaInShade NinjaInShade changed the title Increased --unified support for --patch commands Better support for customising context lines in --patch commands May 5, 2025
@NinjaInShade NinjaInShade force-pushed the interactive-patch-context branch from ff64c39 to 9b90dc6 Compare May 5, 2025 07:28
This aims to teach relevant builtins (that take in `--patch`) to respect
the user's diff.context and diff.interHunkContext file configurations.

Since these are both UI options and `--patch` is designed for the end user,
I believe this was previously just an inconsistency, which this patch hopes
to address.

Signed-off-by: Leon Michalak <[email protected]>
This patch compliments `8b91eef812`, where builtins that accept
`--patch` options now respect `diff.context` and `diff.interHunkContext`
file configurations.

In particular, this patch helps users who don't want to set persistent
context configurations or just want a way to override them on a one-time
basis, by allowing the relevant builtins to accept corresponding command
line options that override the file configurations.

This mimics `diff` which allows for both context file configuration and
command line overrides.

Signed-off-by: Leon Michalak <[email protected]>
This teaches `add/commit --interactive` a new "context" subcommand, which
changes the amount of context lines subsequent subcommands like "patch"
or "diff" generate in their diffs.

Signed-off-by: Leon Michalak <[email protected]>
@NinjaInShade NinjaInShade force-pushed the interactive-patch-context branch from 9b90dc6 to b4b7854 Compare May 5, 2025 07:37
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