Date: Thu, 24 Aug 2000 00:37:33 -0400 From: "Francisco Reyes" <fran@reyes.somos.net> To: "Doug Barton" <Doug@gorean.org> Cc: "FreeBSD Stable List" <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: mergemaster wishlist Message-ID: <200008240428.AAA31509@sanson.reyes.somos.net> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0008231157210.7876-100000@dt051n1f.san.rr.com>
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On Wed, 23 Aug 2000 12:07:29 -0700 (PDT), Doug Barton wrote: >> Changing mergemaster to indicate files to be either ignored or >> copied. Kind of an exception file. >It's not terribly difficult, it's just expensive computationally I gave this a little thought.. There is one way to go about it that will bypass comparisons altogheter. Instead of comparing each file against the exeption list one could process the exception list upfront. Files to be merged automatically will be copied.. files to be ignored would be deleted. What do you think of this approach? >There are better ways to handle that. For example, you could leave >an empty file with the same CVS Id in the "real" location. Then you won't >be bothered by mm telling you that it's missing, AND you have the added >benefit of knowing when it needs to be updated. You still have the inconvenience of having to move the file if there are changes. >But if there are changes you SHOULD look to see what the changes >are. There are lots of things one "should" that one doesn't. I believe programs should help people, not dictate their behavior. If someone can't sleep at night because they merged /etc/defaults without looking at it then they "SHOULD look to see what the changes".. for the rest of us.. it is good enough to just get the latest and greatest defaults. I am working on an addition to mm that will show you how your >rc.conf[.local] and make.conf file variables differ from those in >/etc/defaults, but even that isn't foolproof. And you talked about overhead. :-) rc.conf is small enough that people can just look at it why even bother parsing the entire default file to compare it against the /etc/rc.conf? This is just as subjective a "feature" as it is having the exclusion list. You also mentioned that the exclusion list "violates your design goals". What were those design goals? >All that said, this is a frequent request (every couple months it >pops up) so I am working on a way to do it which will satisfy the >requestors and me both. I think processing the exclusion file upfront may be a good solution that may make everyone happy. francisco Moderator of the Corporate BSD list http://www.egroups.com/group/BSD_Corporate To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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