Why isn't the pathspec magic :(exclude) exclud

Question

This is a follow-up to Ignore files in git log -p and is also related to Making 'git log' ignore changes for certain paths.

I'm using Git 1.9.2. I'm trying to use the pathspec magic :(exclude) to specify that some patches should not be shown in the output of git log -p. However, patches that I want to exclude still show up in the output.

Here is a minimal working example that reproduces the situation:

$ cd ~/Desktop
$ mkdir test_exclude
$ cd test_exclude
$ git init
$ mkdir testdir
$ printf "my first cpp file\n" > testdir/test1.cpp
$ printf "my first xml file\n" > testdir/test2.xml
$ git add testdir/
$ git commit -m "added two test files"

Now I want to show all patches in my history expect those corresponding to XML files in the testdir folder. Therefore, following VonC's answer, I run

$ git log --patch -- . ":(exclude)testdir/*.xml"

but the patch for my testdir/test2.xml file still shows up in the output:

commit 37767da1ad4ad5a5c902dfa0c9b95351e8a3b0d9
Author: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date:   Mon Aug 18 12:23:56 2014 +0100

    added two test files

diff --git a/testdir/test1.cpp b/testdir/test1.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3a721aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/testdir/test1.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+my first cpp file
diff --git a/testdir/test2.xml b/testdir/test2.xml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b7ce86
--- /dev/null
+++ b/testdir/test2.xml
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+my first xml file

What am I doing wrong? What should I do to tell git log -p not to show the patch associated with all XML files in my testdir folder?

Answer 1

Nevermind. The problem appears to have been fixed in Git 1.9.5 (more specifically, in commit ed22b4173bd8d6dbce6236480bd30a63dd54834e). The toy example in my question above works as expected in Git 2.2.1:

$ git --version
git version 2.2.1
$ mkdir test_exclude
$ cd test_exclude/
$ git init
Initialized empty Git repository in /Users/jubobs/Desktop/test_exclude/.git/
$ mkdir testdir
$ printf "my first cpp file\n" > testdir/test1.cpp
$ printf "my first xml file\n" > testdir/test2.xml
$ git add testdir/
$ git commit -m "added two test files"
[master (root-commit) 5429d04] added two test files
 2 files changed, 2 insertions(+)
 create mode 100644 testdir/test1.cpp
 create mode 100644 testdir/test2.xml

$ git log --patch -- . ":(exclude)testdir/*.xml"
commit 5429d047f140f96c5d6167d083fc1a5eab05fb19
Author: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date:   Fri Dec 26 23:40:18 2014 +0100

    added two test files

diff --git a/testdir/test1.cpp b/testdir/test1.cpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3a721aa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/testdir/test1.cpp
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+my first cpp file

As you can see, there is no mention of test2.xml in the output of that git log command, as desired.