bug#54060: 29.0.50; diff-buffers should take narrowing into account

bug#54060: 29.0.50; diff-buffers should take narrowing into account

[Philipp Stephani]

Unlike ediff-buffers, diff-buffers always compares the entire buffer
contents, not the accessible portion.  I think it would be better to
restrict the diff to the accessible portion, since normally buffer
commands only act on the accessible portion (and the capability to
compare only portions of buffers is occasionally quite useful!).  IIUC
the only change needed would be to replace (write-region nil nil ...)
in diff-file-local-copy with (write-region (point-min) (point-max) ...).
If we don't want to change the default behavior, then this could be made
configurable with a customization option.


In GNU Emacs 29.0.50 (build 54, x86_64-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.24.31, cairo version 1.16.0)
 of 2022-02-18
Repository revision: 51e51ce2df46fc0c6e17a97e74b00366bb9c09d8
Repository branch: master
Windowing system distributor 'The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.12014000
System Description: Debian GNU/Linux rodete

Configured using:
 'configure --enable-gcc-warnings=warn-only
 --enable-gtk-deprecation-warnings --without-pop --with-mailutils
 --enable-checking=all --enable-check-lisp-object-type --with-modules
 'CFLAGS=-O0 -ggdb3''

Configured features:
CAIRO DBUS FREETYPE GIF GLIB GMP GNUTLS GSETTINGS HARFBUZZ JPEG JSON
LIBSELINUX LIBSYSTEMD LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY INOTIFY PDUMPER PNG SECCOMP
SOUND THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS X11 XDBE XIM XPM GTK3 ZLIB

Important settings:
  value of $LC_TIME: en_DK.utf8
  value of $LANG: en_US.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: @im=ibus
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Lisp Interaction

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  global-eldoc-mode: t
  eldoc-mode: t
  show-paren-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t
  indent-tabs-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
None found.

Features:
(shadow sort mail-extr emacsbug sendmail phst skeleton pcase ffap
thingatpt url url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history
url-cookie url-domsuf url-util url-parse auth-source cl-seq eieio
eieio-core cl-macs eieio-loaddefs json map url-vars rx message mailcap
yank-media rmc dired dired-loaddefs rfc822 mml mml-sec password-cache
epa derived epg rfc6068 epg-config gnus-util time-date mm-decode
mm-bodies mm-encode mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 mm-util
ietf-drums mail-prsvr mailabbrev mail-utils gmm-utils mailheader gnutls
puny elp dbus xml seq gv subr-x byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile cconv
compile text-property-search comint ansi-color ring cl-loaddefs cl-lib
iso-transl tooltip eldoc paren electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks
lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel term/x-win x-win term/common-win x-dnd
tool-bar dnd fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace
newcomment text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar
rfn-eshadow isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock
font-lock syntax font-core term/tty-colors frame minibuffer cl-generic
cham georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese eucjp-ms cp51932 hebrew greek romanian slovak czech
european ethiopic indian cyrillic chinese composite emoji-zwj charscript
charprop case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple abbrev obarray
cl-preloaded nadvice button loaddefs faces cus-face macroexp files
window text-properties overlay sha1 md5 base64 format env code-pages
mule custom widget keymap hashtable-print-readable backquote threads
dbusbind inotify dynamic-setting system-font-setting font-render-setting
cairo move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x multi-tty make-network-process emacs)

Memory information:
((conses 16 67362 5801)
 (symbols 48 8201 3)
 (strings 32 23681 3041)
 (string-bytes 1 761117)
 (vectors 16 15598)
 (vector-slots 8 208560 36973)
 (floats 8 28 30)
 (intervals 56 230 0)
 (buffers 992 11))

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bug#54060: 29.0.50; diff-buffers should take narrowing into account

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Philipp Stephani <p.stephani2@gmail.com> writes:

> Unlike ediff-buffers, diff-buffers always compares the entire buffer
> contents, not the accessible portion.  I think it would be better to
> restrict the diff to the accessible portion, since normally buffer
> commands only act on the accessible portion (and the capability to
> compare only portions of buffers is occasionally quite useful!).

Makes sense to me, but I rarely use diff-buffers, so I don't really know
what the expectations are.  

> IIUC the only change needed would be to replace (write-region nil nil
> ...)  in diff-file-local-copy with (write-region (point-min)
> (point-max) ...).  If we don't want to change the default behavior,
> then this could be made configurable with a customization option.

I think it would make sense to change the default behaviour, but perhaps
have an option to switch it back to the old behaviour.

Any opinions?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54060: 29.0.50; diff-buffers should take narrowing into account

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I think it would make sense to change the default behaviour, but perhaps
> have an option to switch it back to the old behaviour.
>
> Any opinions?

Nobody had any opinions, but I went in the opposite direction -- keeping
the previous behaviour.  But I don't really have much of an opinion
here, so if somebody thinks that the default should be the opposite way,
please go ahead and make the change.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#54060: 29.0.50; diff-buffers should take narrowing into account

[Philipp Stephani]

> Am 19.02.2022 um 13:29 schrieb Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org>:
> 
> Philipp Stephani <p.stephani2@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Unlike ediff-buffers, diff-buffers always compares the entire buffer
>> contents, not the accessible portion.  I think it would be better to
>> restrict the diff to the accessible portion, since normally buffer
>> commands only act on the accessible portion (and the capability to
>> compare only portions of buffers is occasionally quite useful!).
> 
> Makes sense to me, but I rarely use diff-buffers, so I don't really know
> what the expectations are.  
> 
>> IIUC the only change needed would be to replace (write-region nil nil
>> ...)  in diff-file-local-copy with (write-region (point-min)
>> (point-max) ...).  If we don't want to change the default behavior,
>> then this could be made configurable with a customization option.
> 
> I think it would make sense to change the default behaviour, but perhaps
> have an option to switch it back to the old behaviour.
> 
> Any opinions?

I agree.  At least my opinion/expectation is that commands should by default act on the accessible portion of the buffer.