- 'git-diff-tree' compares contents of two "tree" objects;
-In all of these cases, the commands themselves compare
-corresponding paths in the two sets of files. The result of
-comparison is passed from these commands to what is internally
-called "diffcore", in a format similar to what is output when
-the -p option is not used. E.g.
+In all of these cases, the commands themselves first optionally limit
+the two sets of files by any pathspecs given on their command-lines,
+and compare corresponding paths in the two resulting sets of files.
+
+The pathspecs are used to limit the world diff operates in. They remove
+the filepairs outside the specified sets of pathnames. E.g. If the
+input set of filepairs included:
+
+------------------------------------------------
+:100644 100644 bcd1234... 0123456... M junkfile
+------------------------------------------------
+
+but the command invocation was `git diff-files myfile`, then the
+junkfile entry would be removed from the list because only "myfile"
+is under consideration.
+
+The result of comparison is passed from these commands to what is
+internally called "diffcore", in a format similar to what is output
+when the -p option is not used. E.g.
------------------------------------------------
in-place edit :100644 100644 bcd1234... 0123456... M file0
The diffcore mechanism is fed a list of such comparison results
(each of which is called "filepair", although at this point each
of them talks about a single file), and transforms such a list
-into another list. There are currently 6 such transformations:
+into another list. There are currently 5 such transformations:
-- diffcore-pathspec
- diffcore-break
- diffcore-rename
- diffcore-merge-broken
- diffcore-order
These are applied in sequence. The set of filepairs 'git-diff-{asterisk}'
-commands find are used as the input to diffcore-pathspec, and
-the output from diffcore-pathspec is used as the input to the
+commands find are used as the input to diffcore-break, and
+the output from diffcore-break is used as the input to the
next transformation. The final result is then passed to the
output routine and generates either diff-raw format (see Output
format sections of the manual for 'git-diff-{asterisk}' commands) or
diff-patch format.
-diffcore-pathspec: For Ignoring Files Outside Our Consideration
----------------------------------------------------------------
-
-The first transformation in the chain is diffcore-pathspec, and
-is controlled by giving the pathname parameters to the
-'git-diff-{asterisk}' commands on the command line. The pathspec is used
-to limit the world diff operates in. It removes the filepairs
-outside the specified set of pathnames. E.g. If the input set
-of filepairs included:
-
-------------------------------------------------
-:100644 100644 bcd1234... 0123456... M junkfile
-------------------------------------------------
-
-but the command invocation was `git diff-files myfile`, then the
-junkfile entry would be removed from the list because only "myfile"
-is under consideration.
-
-Implementation note. For performance reasons, 'git-diff-tree'
-uses the pathname parameters on the command line to cull set of
-filepairs it feeds the diffcore mechanism itself, and does not
-use diffcore-pathspec, but the end result is the same.
-
-
diffcore-break: For Splitting Up "Complete Rewrites"
----------------------------------------------------