Re: [bug-diffutils] diff: support for --no-dereference option

[Eric Deplagne]

On Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:22:22 +0100, Bruno Haible wrote:
> Andreas Gruenbacher wrote:
> > In the two directories case, I really don't see when following symlinks
> > would be desirable.  Here, diff is comparable to a tool like tar, for
> > example -- in the tar case, I want to archive what's really there; in
> > the diff case, I want to compare what's really there.
> 
> Take an example. I often move subdirectories and big files from one disk
> to another one, for disk space reasons, and leave in a symlink that points
> to the new location. When I now prepare a backup, I'll use "tar chf -".
> And to compare the backup with the original contents, I use "diff -r".
> 
> I claim that this use-case is more frequent than the one which does not
> follow symlinks. Proof: GNU diff users were happy with the existing behaviour
> for 20 years.

  I've been unhappy with the existing behaviour for symlinks and special files
  (devices and probably others, too) for more than 10 years...

  Never thought the "diff people" would bother, though, because it's in cases
  I diff directory trees (from tar backups, usually) instead of code...

> Bruno

-- 
  Eric Deplagne

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