Re: What's cooking in git.git (Oct 2009, #01; Wed, 07)

[Sverre Rabbelier <srabbelier@gmail.com>]

Heya,

[edited Shawn's message somewhat to be more relevant to vcs-fast-import-dev]

On Thu, Oct 8, 2009 at 19:39, Shawn O. Pearce <spearce@spearce.org> wrote:
> IIRC my problem with options was we weren't enforcing them, and yet
> they were necessary for a successful import, e.g. import-marks or
> export-marks.  A minor error could cause a successful looking import
> that is wrong due to the marks being messed up, or not saved out.
>
> So I was leaning towards making these features, but then they
> aren't necessarily compatible with the other fast-import tools.
>
> I think we want to declare features for import-marks and export-marks:
>
>  feature import-marks=in.marks
>  feature export-marks=out.marks
>
> and define these as paths to local files which store a VCS specific
> formatted mapping of fast-import mark numbers to VCS labels.
>
>
> Other options that are clearly git should be declared as:
>
>  option git max-pack-size=2048
>
> with the meaning of option being declared something like:
>
>  If the parsing VCS name appears as the first argument, the parsing
>  VCS must recognize and support the supplied option, and if not
>  recognized or not supported must abort parsing altogether.
>
>  If the parsing VCS name is not the first argument, it must entirely
>  ignore the option command and not try to process its contents.

I think it makes to ignore options that are not for our vcs, as long
as options that change import behavior (such as marks, date-format)
are combined with, say, 'feature tool=git'. This way we can be sure
that when outputting out a vcs specific stream, it is only parsed by
that vcs.

Note: yes, I know that marks and date-format are features now, but
there's really no other suitable example that I could think of).

vcs fast import devs please ack this idea (and perhaps suggest
something other than "feature tool=git" if preferable) so that I can
reroll my gfi-options series :).

-- 
Cheers,

Sverre Rabbelier