diff: --{rotate,skip}-to=<path>

In the implementation of "git difftool", there is a case where the
user wants to start viewing the diffs at a specific path and
continue on to the rest, optionally wrapping around to the
beginning.  Since it is somewhat cumbersome to implement such a
feature as a post-processing step of "git diff" output, let's
support it internally with two new options.

 - "git diff --rotate-to=C", when the resulting patch would show
   paths A B C D E without the option, would "rotate" the paths to
   shows patch to C D E A B instead.  It is an error when there is
   no patch for C is shown.

 - "git diff --skip-to=C" would instead "skip" the paths before C,
   and shows patch to C D E.  Again, it is an error when there is no
   patch for C is shown.

 - "git log [-p]" also accepts these two options, but it is not an
   error if there is no change to the specified path.  Instead, the
   set of output paths are rotated or skipped to the specified path
   or the first path that sorts after the specified path.

Signed-off-by: Junio C Hamano <gitster@pobox.com>

Documentation/diff-options.txt

@@ -700,6 +700,14 @@ matches a pattern if removing any number of the final pathname
 components matches the pattern.  For example, the pattern "`foo*bar`"
 matches "`fooasdfbar`" and "`foo/bar/baz/asdf`" but not "`foobarx`".
 
+--skip-to=<file>::
+--rotate-to=<file>::
+	Discard the files before the named <file> from the output
+	(i.e. 'skip to'), or move them to the end of the output
+	(i.e. 'rotate to').  These were invented primarily for use
+	of the `git difftool` command, and may not be very useful
+	otherwise.
+
 ifndef::git-format-patch[]
 -R::
 	Swap two inputs; that is, show differences from index or

Documentation/gitdiffcore.txt

@@ -74,6 +74,7 @@ into another list.  There are currently 5 such transformations:
 - diffcore-merge-broken
 - diffcore-pickaxe
 - diffcore-order
+- diffcore-rotate
 
 These are applied in sequence.  The set of filepairs 'git diff-{asterisk}'
 commands find are used as the input to diffcore-break, and
@@ -276,6 +277,26 @@ Documentation
 t
 ------------------------------------------------
 
+diffcore-rotate: For Changing At Which Path Output Starts
+---------------------------------------------------------
+
+This transformation takes one pathname, and rotates the set of
+filepairs so that the filepair for the given pathname comes first,
+optionally discarding the paths that come before it.  This is used
+to implement the `--skip-to` and the `--rotate-to` options.  It is
+an error when the specified pathname is not in the set of filepairs,
+but it is not useful to error out when used with "git log" family of
+commands, because it is unreasonable to expect that a given path
+would be modified by each and every commit shown by the "git log"
+command.  For this reason, when used with "git log", the filepair
+that sorts the same as, or the first one that sorts after, the given
+pathname is where the output starts.
+
+Use of this transformation combined with diffcore-order will produce
+unexpected results, as the input to this transformation is likely
+not sorted when diffcore-order is in effect.
+
+
 SEE ALSO
 --------
 linkgit:git-diff[1],

Makefile

@@ -863,6 +863,7 @@ LIB_OBJS += diffcore-delta.o
 LIB_OBJS += diffcore-order.o
 LIB_OBJS += diffcore-pickaxe.o
 LIB_OBJS += diffcore-rename.o
+LIB_OBJS += diffcore-rotate.o
 LIB_OBJS += dir-iterator.o
 LIB_OBJS += dir.o
 LIB_OBJS += editor.o

builtin/diff-files.c

@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@ int cmd_diff_files(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	}
 	if (!rev.diffopt.output_format)
 		rev.diffopt.output_format = DIFF_FORMAT_RAW;
+	rev.diffopt.rotate_to_strict = 1;
 
 	/*
 	 * Make sure there are NO revision (i.e. pending object) parameter,

builtin/diff-index.c

@@ -41,6 +41,8 @@ int cmd_diff_index(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	if (!rev.diffopt.output_format)
 		rev.diffopt.output_format = DIFF_FORMAT_RAW;
 
+	rev.diffopt.rotate_to_strict = 1;
+
 	/*
 	 * Make sure there is one revision (i.e. pending object),
 	 * and there is no revision filtering parameters.

builtin/diff-tree.c

@@ -156,6 +156,8 @@ int cmd_diff_tree(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	if (merge_base && opt->pending.nr != 2)
 		die(_("--merge-base only works with two commits"));
 
+	opt->diffopt.rotate_to_strict = 1;
+
 	/*
 	 * NOTE!  We expect "a..b" to expand to "^a b" but it is
 	 * perfectly valid for revision range parser to yield "b ^a",
@@ -192,6 +194,7 @@ int cmd_diff_tree(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 		int saved_nrl = 0;
 		int saved_dcctc = 0;
 
+		opt->diffopt.rotate_to_strict = 0;
 		if (opt->diffopt.detect_rename) {
 			if (!the_index.cache)
 				repo_read_index(the_repository);

builtin/diff.c

@@ -491,6 +491,7 @@ int cmd_diff(int argc, const char **argv, const char *prefix)
 	}
 
 	rev.diffopt.flags.recursive = 1;
+	rev.diffopt.rotate_to_strict = 1;
 
 	setup_diff_pager(&rev.diffopt);
 

diff.c

@@ -5348,6 +5348,19 @@ static int diff_opt_word_diff_regex(const struct option *opt,
 	return 0;
 }
 
+static int diff_opt_rotate_to(const struct option *opt, const char *arg, int unset)
+{
+	struct diff_options *options = opt->value;
+
+	BUG_ON_OPT_NEG(unset);
+	if (!strcmp(opt->long_name, "skip-to"))
+		options->skip_instead_of_rotate = 1;
+	else
+		options->skip_instead_of_rotate = 0;
+	options->rotate_to = arg;
+	return 0;
+}
+
 static void prep_parse_options(struct diff_options *options)
 {
 	struct option parseopts[] = {
@@ -5599,6 +5612,12 @@ static void prep_parse_options(struct diff_options *options)
 			  DIFF_PICKAXE_REGEX, PARSE_OPT_NONEG),
 		OPT_FILENAME('O', NULL, &options->orderfile,
 			     N_("control the order in which files appear in the output")),
+		OPT_CALLBACK_F(0, "rotate-to", options, N_("<path>"),
+			       N_("show the change in the specified path first"),
+			       PARSE_OPT_NONEG, diff_opt_rotate_to),
+		OPT_CALLBACK_F(0, "skip-to", options, N_("<path>"),
+			       N_("skip the output to the specified path"),
+			       PARSE_OPT_NONEG, diff_opt_rotate_to),
 		OPT_CALLBACK_F(0, "find-object", options, N_("<object-id>"),
 			       N_("look for differences that change the number of occurrences of the specified object"),
 			       PARSE_OPT_NONEG, diff_opt_find_object),
@@ -6669,6 +6688,8 @@ void diffcore_std(struct diff_options *options)
 		diffcore_pickaxe(options);
 	if (options->orderfile)
 		diffcore_order(options->orderfile);
+	if (options->rotate_to)
+		diffcore_rotate(options);
 	if (!options->found_follow)
 		/* See try_to_follow_renames() in tree-diff.c */
 		diff_resolve_rename_copy();

diff.h

@@ -227,6 +227,27 @@ enum diff_submodule_format {
 struct diff_options {
 	const char *orderfile;
 
+	/*
+	 * "--rotate-to=<file>" would start showing at <file> and when
+	 * the output reaches the end, wrap around by default.
+	 * Setting skip_instead_of_rotate to true stops the output at the
+	 * end, effectively discarding the earlier part of the output
+	 * before <file>'s diff (this is used to implement the
+	 * "--skip-to=<file>" option).
+	 *
+	 * When rotate_to_strict is set, it is an error if there is no
+	 * <file> in the diff.  Otherwise, the output starts at the
+	 * path that is the same as, or first path that sorts after,
+	 * <file>.  Because it is unreasonable to require the exact
+	 * match for "git log -p --rotate-to=<file>" (i.e. not all
+	 * commit would touch that single <file>), "git log" sets it
+	 * to false.  "git diff" sets it to true to detect an error
+	 * in the command line option.
+	 */
+	const char *rotate_to;
+	int skip_instead_of_rotate;
+	int rotate_to_strict;
+
 	/**
 	 * A constant string (can and typically does contain newlines to look for
 	 * a block of text, not just a single line) to filter out the filepairs

diffcore-rotate.c

@@ -0,0 +1,46 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (C) 2021, Google LLC.
+ * Based on diffcore-order.c, which is Copyright (C) 2005, Junio C Hamano
+ */
+#include "cache.h"
+#include "diff.h"
+#include "diffcore.h"
+
+void diffcore_rotate(struct diff_options *opt)
+{
+	struct diff_queue_struct *q = &diff_queued_diff;
+	struct diff_queue_struct outq;
+	int rotate_to, i;
+
+	if (!q->nr)
+		return;
+
+	for (i = 0; i < q->nr; i++) {
+		int cmp = strcmp(opt->rotate_to, q->queue[i]->two->path);
+		if (!cmp)
+			break; /* exact match */
+		if (!opt->rotate_to_strict && cmp < 0)
+			break; /* q->queue[i] is now past the target pathname */
+	}
+
+	if (q->nr <= i) {
+		/* we did not find the specified path */
+		if (opt->rotate_to_strict)
+			die(_("No such path '%s' in the diff"), opt->rotate_to);
+		return;
+	}
+
+	DIFF_QUEUE_CLEAR(&outq);
+	rotate_to = i;
+
+	for (i = rotate_to; i < q->nr; i++)
+		diff_q(&outq, q->queue[i]);
+	for (i = 0; i < rotate_to; i++) {
+		if (opt->skip_instead_of_rotate)
+			diff_free_filepair(q->queue[i]);
+		else
+			diff_q(&outq, q->queue[i]);
+	}
+	free(q->queue);
+	*q = outq;
+}

diffcore.h

@@ -164,6 +164,7 @@ void diffcore_rename(struct diff_options *);
 void diffcore_merge_broken(void);
 void diffcore_pickaxe(struct diff_options *);
 void diffcore_order(const char *orderfile);
+void diffcore_rotate(struct diff_options *);
 
 /* low-level interface to diffcore_order */
 struct obj_order {

t/t4056-diff-order.sh

@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 #!/bin/sh
 
-test_description='diff order'
+test_description='diff order & rotate'
 
 GIT_TEST_DEFAULT_INITIAL_BRANCH_NAME=main
 export GIT_TEST_DEFAULT_INITIAL_BRANCH_NAME
@@ -127,4 +127,74 @@ do
 	'
 done
 
+### rotate and skip
+
+test_expect_success 'rotate and skip setup' '
+	>sample1.t &&
+	>sample2.t &&
+	>sample3.t &&
+	>sample4.t &&
+	git add sample[1234].t &&
+	git commit -m "added" sample[1234].t &&
+	echo modified >>sample1.t &&
+	echo modified >>sample2.t &&
+	echo modified >>sample4.t &&
+	git commit -m "updated" sample[1234].t
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff --rotate-to' '
+	git diff --rotate-to=sample2.t --name-only HEAD^ >actual &&
+	test_write_lines sample2.t sample4.t sample1.t >expect &&
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff --skip-to' '
+	git diff --skip-to=sample2.t --name-only HEAD^ >actual &&
+	test_write_lines sample2.t sample4.t >expect &&
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'diff --rotate/skip-to error condition' '
+	test_must_fail git diff --rotate-to=sample3.t HEAD^ &&
+	test_must_fail git diff --skip-to=sample3.t HEAD^
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'log --rotate-to' '
+	git log --rotate-to=sample3.t --raw HEAD~2.. >raw &&
+	# just distill the commit header and paths
+	sed -n -e "s/^commit.*/commit/p" \
+	       -e "/^:/s/^.*	//p" raw >actual &&
+
+	cat >expect <<-\EOF &&
+	commit
+	sample4.t
+	sample1.t
+	sample2.t
+	commit
+	sample3.t
+	sample4.t
+	sample1.t
+	sample2.t
+	EOF
+
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
+test_expect_success 'log --skip-to' '
+	git log --skip-to=sample3.t --raw HEAD~2.. >raw &&
+	# just distill the commit header and paths
+	sed -n -e "s/^commit.*/commit/p" \
+	       -e "/^:/s/^.*	//p" raw >actual &&
+
+	cat >expect <<-\EOF &&
+	commit
+	sample4.t
+	commit
+	sample3.t
+	sample4.t
+	EOF
+
+	test_cmp expect actual
+'
+
 test_done