Re: Htree directory index for Ext2, updated

[Daniel Phillips <phillips@bonn-fries.net>]

On Friday 17 May 2002 09:36, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> ----------- the insanity -------------
> 
> Ignoring RCS/ClearCase/SCCS, the algorithm is
> claimed to be:
> 
> patch takes an ordered list of candidate file names
> ...
> old, new, index   [index is from "Index:" line]
> ...
> If some of the named files exist, patch selects
> the first name if conforming to POSIX,

This is amazingly stupid.  The naive user would always expect the
file prefixed with '+++' to be selected, whether or not it exists.

> and the "best" [*] name otherwise.

Which is about the only way to make the selection process even
less sensible.

> [...]
> Half of the badness is POSIX mandated. As for
> the other half... well, you should produce
> patches that work with the existing tools.

Patch is severely broken in its current form, not only for the
reasons you stated, but also because of its inability to handle
renaming in any sane way.  I want a patch --sane option.

-- 
Daniel