Re: Diffs between %s and %s end here

[David Kastrup]

Reiner Steib <address@hidden> writes:

> On Sat, Mar 08 2008, Richard Stallman wrote:
>
>>     I dunno, maybe it's just a personal foible, but emacs the "diff" command
>>     used to add this sort of terminator line (haven't noticed recently) sort
>>     of terminator string, and I always found it very annoying -- it probably
>>     doesn't cause anything to _break_ but it was like an ugly little wart,
>>     and I always ended up going to extra effort to delete it when saving the
>>     output.
>>
>> I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.  
>
> Before "Diffs between %s and %s end here" was removed, several people
> reported to be distracted or annoyed by it.  See the thread on
> emacs-devel in January[1].  Nobody spoke up in favor of it when Glenn
> announced to "remove it in a week or so if no-one objects."
>
>> If there is no other reason for its removal, we should put it back
>> in.
>
> Please don't (at least provide an option to turn it off).
>
> When I produce a diff before committing a change, I often want to make
> sure the no unintended/other changes crept in.  I expect to see
> exactly the diffs, not some disturbing additional lines.  Even after
> seeing it several weeks (but not using diff very frequently), I still
> found it distracting.[1]

Maybe we should put informational messages like that as an (evaporating)
afterstring overlay on the final LF character?  That way they would not
be copied anywhere.

>> Those canbe useful, but inserting text at the end is also useful.  For
>> instance, M-x compile does both.  When it finishes, it inserts text
>> saying "Compilation finished ...".
>
> I almost never want to save compilation output buffers (or include it
> in a mail message), but I often do for diffs.  Additionally, in
> compilation mode, it is more clear that this line is not part of the
> output because the bold words are in green or red:

Same could be done here.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum