Re: [RFD] Explicitly documenting patch submission

Jörn Engel
2004-05-27T15:19:00Z

On Thu, 27 May 2004 07:51:27 -0700, Larry McVoy wrote:
>
> I think we can have our cake and eat it too, at least in BK (and there
> is no reason other systems couldn't do this as well): BK does not have
> the concept of a 1:1 binding between a change to a file and a changeset.
> A changeset is a container which may have one or more deltas to one or
> more files, i.e., it is many:1.
>
> If you took to sending your patches as the original patch plus another
> patch, bundling them together (I can work out a format and GPLed tools for
> this) then what we could do is have the BK import tools record the first
> one as a set of deltas, the next one as another set of deltas, and so on.
> We can handle an arbitrary number of patches to patches to patches.
> Then when the import finishes we bundle up all the deltas in one logical
> changeset. 99% of the time people won't care about the details, when
> they are looking through the code the interfaces will all work as they
> do today, the BK/Web interface would export this as a patch just like
> you are used to, but when people do care the full information is there.

Sounds good, as long as it is simple (read: simplest) to read and
export the result of everything as one patch. I.e. I wouldn't want to
see this:

@@ -28,6 +28,7 @@

+ /* new comment in empty raea */

@@ -28,67+28,7 @@

- /* new comment in empty raea */
+ /* new comment in empty area */

But that goes without saying, doesn't it? ;)

> I suspect that with a little practice this could be quite useful.
> I could build tools which record the secondary patches as diffs to
> the patches (I think) and if you have ever read a diff of a diff
> it is suprisingly useful. I tend to save diffs of my work in
> progress and then later I'll generate diffs again and diff them to
> get my context back.

Diffs to diffs I am even less eager to read. As an internal format,
they make sense, though.

Jörn

--
There's nothing better for promoting creativity in a medium than
making an audience feel "Hmm ­ I could do better than that!"
-- Douglas Adams in a slashdot interview