Re: [PATCH v4 2/3] completion: complete tracked paths for 'git diff'

On Fri, Aug 7, 2026 at 2:18 AM Elijah Newren <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Thu, Aug 6, 2026 at 6:38 PM Junio C Hamano <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > When completing arguments for 'git diff', _git_diff() delegates to
> > __git_complete_revlist_file(), which only completes revision
> > references.  This is good [*], as mixing both revisions and paths in a
> > single list for the user to pick from is simply too confusing.
> >
> > If no reference matches, or if '--' is given, however, _git_diff()
> > leaves COMPREPLY empty.  Bash then falls back to default filename
> > completion in $PWD.  This fails when 'git -C <path>' is used because
> > $PWD is not the target repository.
> >
> > Update _git_diff() to use __git_complete_index_file() when '--' is
> > present, or when revision reference completion yields no matching
> > candidates, so that tracked paths are offered as candidates.
> >
> > This changes behavior even in the case where '-C <there>' is not
> > used.  The new behavior omits untracked paths from suggestions when
> > no revs match the prefix but matching tracked paths exist, which is
> > more useful in the context of 'git diff'.
>
> I'm looking forward to using this.  :-)
>
> [...]
> > diff --git a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> > index ccd3b2a372..845fd19f70 100644
> > --- a/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> > +++ b/contrib/completion/git-completion.bash
> > @@ -1981,6 +1981,10 @@ _git_diff ()
> >                 esac
> >                 __git_complete_revlist_file
> >         fi
> > +
> > +       if [ ${#COMPREPLY[@]} -eq 0 ]; then
> > +               __git_complete_index_file
> > +       fi
> >  }
>
> Curious; __git_complete_index_file() is documented as "requires 1
> argument", but you pass none here.  As far as I can tell, it works
> anyway, but feels like an accident:
>
> 1.   __git_complete_index_file CALLS
>       __git_index_files "$1" ...
>       (Here, "$1" == "")
> 2.   __git_index_files "$1" ... CALLS
>       __git_ls_files_helper "$root" "$1" ...
>       (Here, "$1" == "", again)
> 3.   __git_ls_files_helper "$root" "$1" CALLS
>       __git -C "$1" -c core.quotePath=false ls-files
> --exclude-standard $2 -- ...
>       (Note that $2 is unquoted, and since it's empty, it disappears)
>
> It seems like it'd be better to pass an explicit "" to
> __git_complete_index_file than to implicitly get it.

Good spot. All the other callers pass an argument.

-- 
D. Ben Knoble