Re: GNU diff command, was: Re: Fun trick

On 1/17/25 15:39, Craig A. Berry wrote:

 On 1/17/25 8:07 AM, Craig A. Berry wrote:

>
it should be
possible to get diffs outside a repository with "git diff --noindex".
That said, I tried it just now and couldn't get it to work.

 It does work, but not for VFC files and it cannot handle version numbers
in a filename, so its usefulness on VMS is pretty limited.

Using git to get a the output in the Unix/GNU diff style seems overkill to me.
As you probably know, if you can get the GNV diff utility, you can run it from DCL.
To handle VMS file version, there is a workaround. Assumed gdiff is the DCL symbol for the GNV diff utility:
$ pipe define/user decc$filename_unix_only 0 && -
   gdiff -ub sys$disk:[]x.com;1 sys$disk:[]x.com;2
As indicated, you may need a full file spec and the files have to be in Stream_LF record format.
PS: For VMS git you should convert all files to Stream_LF and purge all the versions before you attempt to use git. Especially if you want to switch to/check out another branch or commit. VMS git is a port of the open sources, in that sense and despite of its name, it is more a GNV than a VMS tool. It helps, if you already have the sources in Stream_LF (probably copied from a non-VMS system) or an editor on VMS that creates this record format by default. Such editors exist. And, as you probably noticed, not everything works as expected in the initial version of VMS git.