On 16 June 2012 18:04, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Dean Rasheed <dean.a.rasheed@gmail.com> writes:
>> BTW, I had no problems applying both the original patch and Chetan
>> Suttraway's version. The only difference between the patches seems to
>> be that the original is in context format, and Chetan Suttraway's is
>> in unified format.
>
>> Which format do hackers actually prefer? The wiki page
>> http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Working_with_Git#Context_diffs_with_Git
>> suggests context format, but then the linked example
>> http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Creating_Clean_Patches is in unified
>> format. Do people care, or are both formats OK?
>
> Some people find one or the other more readable. (I'm in the camp that
> says unified format is great for isolated single-line changes and
> utterly unreadable for anything more complex, but apparently there are
> people who prefer it.)
>
> For detailed review/commit purposes, it doesn't matter that much as long
> as the patch applies cleanly, since it's easy to apply it and then get
> a diff in the other format if you prefer reading the other. However,
> if you're just hoping people will eyeball the patch in email and comment
> on it, readability matters. If the patch requires manual fixup in order
> to get it to apply anymore, readability is also a concern, since you're
> dependent on the committer not misinterpreting the hunks he has to patch
> in by hand.
>
OK thanks, that's good to know.
I tend to find context format easier to read for large patches, but
that's a highly subjective thing.
Regards,
Dean