Re: [Bug-vc-dwim] 15 of 20 tests failed

[Jim Meyering]

Bruno Haible wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to install vc-dwim 1.5 on a glibc 2.11 system (openSUSE Linux).
>
> Using perl 5.12.3, git 1.6.3.2.
>
> Configured with "./configure". "make". "make check" results:
>
> ====================================
> 15 of 20 tests failed
> See tests/test-suite.log
> Please report to address@hidden
> ====================================
>
> Details attached below.
>
> The cause is that I have an environment variable GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF set.
> If I unset this environment variable, all 20 tests pass.
>
> Will it be reliable to use vc-dwim with GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF set?
> Or should I change the vc-dwim program to first unset this variable?

Hi Bruno,

Thank you for the detailed report.
Since vc-dwim parses diffs produced by "git diff",
if your setting of GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF changes that
output format (highly likely), then vc-dwim will fail to
parse e.g., ChangeLog diffs.

Thus, safest is simply to unset that variable inside vc-dwim,
at least for some code paths.  However, if you prefer to use
an external diff program, it would be nice if vc-dwim were to
let you do that, at least when displaying "git diff" output.

How important is it to you that vc-dwim's git diff output honors
GIT_EXTERNAL_DIFF?