[Python-Dev] Unified or context diffs?

[Brett C.]

Barry Warsaw wrote:
> On Wed, 2005-04-13 at 15:54, Brett C. wrote:
> 
> 
>>I thought at one point this question came up and the general consensus was that
>>unified diffs were preferred?
> 
> 
> Back in the day, we preferred context diffs, and I think of the original
> Python core group, Guido was the last holdout.  But IIRC, a few years
> ago the issue came up again; Guido had changed his mind so we changed
> syncmail to produce unified diffs.
> 

Eh.  Guido doesn't deal with patches anymore, so his opinion doesn't count.  =)

> IMO unifieds are preferred when the diffs are for human consumption, but
> when they're only for machine consumption, anything that the patch
> program accepts is fine.
> 

OK, it seems like everyone who cares enough to speak up has said so far that
unified diffs are better I will change the docs some time between now and when
I keel over dead to have people use unified diffs assuming some rush of people
don't suddenly start saying they prefer contextual diffs.

-Brett