Re: More on "arch" (our competition)

       arch's patch format is an entire directory tree (unless I've missed
       something) - this is useless: an extended diff has to be something
       that can be inserted into the body of an e-mail message.

I agree about e-mail, but not about useless. For example, you can
send a tree as a uuencoded tar file.

       Personally, I would suggest that an extended diff should resemble a
       shell script closely enough that it could be applied to an exported
       tree by running it.

Yes, the "GNU patch" man page suggests that, too. But it isn't very
practical. In addition to the problems already cited:

What external commands would that shell script rely on? How
effectively do you want it to handle inexact patching (e.g., applying
it to a tree that has already been rearranged relative to the old tree
used to generate the patch)? What protections do you forsee against
scripts that contain malicious commands? How will you support tools
that automatically manipulate patch sets in ways other than applying
them (e.g., composing or reversing patch sets; generating reports
describing patches)?

-t

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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:57 2006