[Mathias Weinert]
> As the second one doesn't make it obvious that the file is missing
> (on the first sight there is a "normal" path).
It doesn't seem confusing to me at all. Don't all Unix users (i.e.,
most people who know how to read udiff format) know what "/dev/null"
means?
> --- file1 r5 Sun Sep 9 15:40:00 2001 (original)
> +++ () 00:00:00 1970 (empty, because file is deleted)
>
> Could you please confirm that this works with your GNU patch?
That case works, yes. However, the extra "r5" field, in the general
case, messes up the patch -T and -Z options. Since those options are
the only reason I can think of to bother printing timestamps, you may
as well remove the "Sun Sep 9 15:40:00 2001" entirely.
I'm still not convinced that "()" is a clearer magic filename than
"/dev/null". The advantage of "/dev/null" is that you can omit the
timestamp in _all_ cases, and I find the lack of such clutter
refreshing when reading udiffs, especially since this usually prevents
the --- +++ headers from wrapping past 80 columns. My own patch
management scripts already remove timestamps from my diff headers, for
readability, and I happen to know I'm not the only one who does this.
Received on Mon Sep 18 15:28:36 2006