Date: Tue, 4 Feb 2003 23:43:06 -0800 (PST) From: Doug Barton <DougB@FreeBSD.org> To: Garance A Drosihn <drosih@rpi.edu> Cc: Dag-Erling Smorgrav <des@ofug.org>, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Modifying mergemaster behavior Message-ID: <20030204231125.X27397@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> In-Reply-To: <p05200f4fba6513ae8982@[128.113.24.47]> References: <200301281844.h0SIie3G086935@repoman.freebsd.org> <p05200f24ba5c8412dcd1@[128.113.24.47]> <200301281908.h0SJ8OoY028183@apollo.backplane.com> <p05200f26ba5c85ee4c77@[128.113.24.47]> <20030201235429.G77226@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> <xzpy94xa6fb.fsf@flood.ping.uio.no> <20030203091128.Y4113@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> <p05200f4cba64ed4989d3@[128.113.24.47]> <20030203221928.S11438@12-234-22-23.pyvrag.nggov.pbz> <p05200f4fba6513ae8982@[128.113.24.47]>
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On Tue, 4 Feb 2003, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> At 10:36 PM -0800 2/3/03, Doug Barton wrote:
> >On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, Garance A Drosihn wrote:
> > > I added:
> >> -I '$FreeBSD:.*$'
> > > to the 'diff ${DIFF_FLAG}' command in diff_loop, and it seems to
> > > have worked the way I wanted it to work.
> >
> >How did you want it to work? (This isn't a rhetorical question.)
>
> I do not care to see what the version-string is, and I certainly
> don't need to see the two un-changing lines before and after the
> version-string. When you also count the diff-output line which
> gives the line numbers of the change, that's a total of six lines
> which appear on the screen and which give me (IMO) very little
> useful information.
Ok, thanks for that description.
> Try -I and watch how it behaves.
I have, actually.
> > > I suppose we should also change the 'absolute diff first' part
> > > to include that, or people will be asked about merging a file,
> > > only to be shown a file which apparently has zero changes.
> >
> >I'm sorry, I don't understand exactly what you're getting at here.
>
> There's a section of mergemaster that starts out with the comment
> "Do an absolute diff first to see if the files are actually different".
That's an option that users can enable, it's not the default behavior.
> What I was saying is we should add the same -I argument to that
> diff command,
That's not going to happen... the whole point of strict comparison mode is
that ALL differences are displayed, no matter what. Since users choose
this option, it's reasonable not to change its behavior.
> In thinking about it now, I realize that I (personally) would
> prefer that mergemaster would just install the file in that case,
> but the result of adding the -I to that diff command is that the
> file would be quietly skipped over. I could live with that too,
> but I'd feel better to have it automatically installed. JMO.
I'm really, really hesitant to do this. The first time that this goes
wrong, the peasants will be after my ass with torches and pitchforks, and
they will be well justified. I'll give some thought to it though... it
may be worth adding this as an option, with a big fat warning.
> > > If so, my gut reaction is that if a lot of FreeBSD users are
> > > requesting this, then we should figure out how to make it
> > > happen -- one way or another.
>
> What I was getting at is that mergemaster is going to be run fairly
> often by a significant number of freebsd users. If we need make some
> changes to make that process more pleasant, then I think we should
> feel free to do that.
My primary design goal, and the one that I've jealously guarded from
people clamoring for options that increase the "pleasantness" of the mm
experience is that running mergemaster should always be SAFE. It never
alters any existing file without explicit user input. The -i option is a
slight bastardization of my original design, but one that I was willing to
compromise on because it doesn't touch things that already exist.
I'm snipping your discussion about adding options to diff, since I can't
code mm to deal with diff options that don't exist yet. I already
added stat(1) to the base to deal with the demise of perl. :)
What I can do in the short term is make a couple small changes to mm in
order to make it possible to add your -I$FreeBSD to the DIFF_FLAG variable
in .mergemasterrc so that folks can test this behavior easily, then give
me further feedback on it.
Thanks again for your feedback, I appreciate you carefully describing what
you want, it makes it a lot easier for me to respond, and improve the
program.
Doug
--
If it's moving, encrypt it. If it's not moving, encrypt
it till it moves, then encrypt it some more.
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