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>

2 files changed, 29 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/Documentation/diff-options.txt b/Documentation/diff-options.txt
index e5733ccb2d..aa2b5c11f2 100644
--- a/Documentation/diff-options.txt
+++ b/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
diff --git a/Documentation/gitdiffcore.txt b/Documentation/gitdiffcore.txt
index c970d9fe43..2bd1220477 100644
--- a/Documentation/gitdiffcore.txt
+++ b/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],