Fun with running textconv

Today I met somebody and signed his PGP key. Then I thought I should check my own key, so I did this:

  $ gpg --recv-key 713660A7

which reported that I got a few new signatures.

I have my GnuPG keys in a Git repository. Out of habit, I did

  $ git diff -U0

and was pleasantly surprised to see:

  diff --git i/gnupg/pubring.gpg w/gnupg/pubring.gpg

  index 22b29b8..8beac85 100644

  --- i/gnupg/pubring.gpg

  +++ w/gnupg/pubring.gpg

  @@ -22,0 +23,1 @@ pub  4096R/713660A7 2011-10-01 Junio C Hamano

  +sig        00411886 2012-07-20   Linus Torvalds

  @@ -42,0 +44,1 @@ uid                            Junio C Hamano

  ...

in the output.

The surprise is not that I got a signature by Linus (I gave him the key fingerprint when I met him in person during OSCON week). It is that I am seeing a textual diff, which I completely forgot about having arranged to happen.

In the directory, I have this in the .gitattributes file:

  *ring.gpg       diff=gpg

and the repository has this in its .git/config file:

  [diff "gpg"]

          textconv = gpg -v

          xfuncname = "^((pub|uid) .*)"

These two, taken together, tells Git when comparing any file whose name matches "*ring.pgp", pass its contents to "gpg -v" command before running its comparison logic.  "gpg -v" command, when fed a keyring, shows the textual report of what is in the keyring, and that is how I get the above output. And the xfuncname thing tells Git to show the key's name on the @@ lines.

Fun ;-)