Subject: bug#21023: closed (Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#21023: --no-dereference)

From: [email-masked] (GNU bug Tracking System)
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 19:56:02 +0000

Your bug report

#21023: REQUEST: --no-dereference missing from manpage + please make a short option for it

which was filed against the diffutils package, has been closed.

The explanation is attached below, along with your original report.
If you require more details, please reply to [email-masked].

-- 
21023: http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=21023
GNU Bug Tracking System
Contact [email-masked] with problems

Subject: Re: [bug-diffutils] bug#21023: --no-dereference
From: Jim Meyering <[email-masked]>
To: Rodrigo Valiña Gutiérrez <[email-masked]>
Cc: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2015 12:54:44 -0700
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

tags 21023 notabug
thanks

On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 9:59 AM, Rodrigo Valiña Gutiérrez
<[email-masked]> wrote:
> --no-dereference appears in 'diff --help' and 'info diffutils', but
> not in 'man diff'.

Thanks for the report, but that is unlikely to be a problem with this
upstream diffutils package, since the man page (diff.1) is
automatically generated from the output of diff --help, and the build
machinery to do that has been in place for over a decade. I would
suspect whatever installed your diff man pages or the configuration of
your "man(1)" program -- maybe it is searching in the wrong place.

I'm closing the auto-generated ticket in our bug-tracking system, but
please reply here (we'll still see it) if you think there is something
we can improve on this front.

Subject: REQUEST: --no-dereference missing from manpage + please make a short option for it
From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 02:42:57 +0200
List-Id: <debbugs-submit.debbugs.gnu.org>

Hey.

It seems that --no-dereference is not documented in the manpage.

Apart from that, --no-dereference seem to me like the more native way
for a recursive diff to work,... i.e. diffing the values of symlinks
and not (recursively) the stuff they point to.

Since no-dereference is so helpful, could you perhaps add a shortcut -R
that is recursive + no-dereference?

Unfortunately it's probably too late to change -r to behave like --no
-dereference (and instead add a --dereference and a -R).

Best wishes,
Chris.