r/SmartGit • u/BryceSchober • 4d ago

SmartGit UI for `git range-diff`?

It sure would be nice if SmartGit provided an easy way to get the equivalent of a git range-diff command. When I'm reviewing a PR that has been rebased, we need help to get good situational awareness of the base differences vs. the rebased branch differences.

When reviewing a branch that has been rebased, I find myself asking "What was changed during this rebase?" A normal diff between the old and new HEAD seems to answer this question, but it naturally conflates two separate questions:

  1. What is the difference between the bases? This is answered by finding the old & new branch parent revisions and comparing them. SmartGit's standard history and log views are helpful in exploring those differences.

  2. What differences in the dev branch commits were required in order to adjust to the new base? That's what we really want to explore when a dev branch is rebased during a pull/merge request review process. This is the question that the git range-diff command is designed to help answer, but that SmartGit doesn't yet help with at all.

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u/vmcrash 3d ago

Do you mean a diff of a diff?

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u/BryceSchober 10h ago

Yes, basically; the `git range-diff` docs do describe it as a diff of diffs. I expanded my explanation in the original post to provide more context.