On 01/08/12 10:48, Bruno Haible wrote: > OK. Can I thus commit the patch that introduces --no-dereference?
Yes, please go ahead. I'd like to wait for further input before going ahead with the backwards-incompatible changes to -P, -H, -L. > And I don't think many people use these options -P, -H, -L: They are > undocumented. The latest version of RCS (5.8) uses diff -L. I'll file a bug report. But that's not a good sign. > --speed-large-files is essential for users who need to reduce > the running time from O(N²) to O(N). The running time is O(ND) where D is the number of differences. One can come up with examples exhibiting O(N**2) behavior, but they're rare enough in practice that it doesn't seem to be a problem. As far as I know, --speed-large-files has never been implemented in GNU diff (as -h was in the original Unix diff); it has always been a no-op.
