GNU bug report logs - #48047
provide --dereference

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Message #5 received at submit <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo <at> scientia.net>
To: bug-diffutils <at> gnu.org
Subject: provide --dereference
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2021 22:36:19 +0200

Hey.

It would be nice if there was a counter option to --no-dereference
(i.e. --dereference) that would revert the effect of a previous --no-
dereference in the argument list.

The idea is, that especially for recursive diffing, it often makes
sense to use --no-dereference - yet I guess one wouldn't want to change
the default in general to use --no-dereference or even just for -r as
this would probably break things.

So people may still want to set up e.g. a bash alias like:
diff="diff --no-dereference"

however, then they have no way (except unaliasing) to get the regular
behaviour in an interactive shell.



Cheers,
Chris.

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