Re: extfs patchfs update

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hello!

> I've noticed, that patchfs is quite useless right now.

I agree.  That's why it's not associated with *.diff files by default.

> I've updated it to handle unified diffs (the most popular patch format),
> and I'm working on the context diff format.

I like the idea of using "--- " as the beginning, but using the same 
boundary for the end is probably wrong - it adds various stuff to the end 
of the file that doesn't belong there.  For CVS-generated diffs it can be 
quite a lot, something like this:

Index: Makefile.am
=================================================================== 
RCS file: /cvs/gnome/mc/vfs/extfs/Makefile.am,v 
retrieving revision 1.5 
retrieving revision 1.9 
diff -u -r1.5 -r1.9 

I think that patchfs badly needs to be rewritten in Perl, because sed is
not powerful enough to handle diffs.

Patches should include preceding text, i.e. all those "Index:" and "diff"  
lines.

Size of patches is essential.  I want to know which files are patched more
radically than others.  Perl can calculate the size as it processes the
file.

> I'm including new patchfs as an attachment - if you want to, add it to
> mc distribution.

Unless you rewrite patchfs in Perl, please send patches.

> ps. I've just subscribed to this list. I want to say I'm really happy,
> that GNOME support has been thrown out of mc, and that the real mc is
> now actively developed. Hope I can help...

Not very actively.  We didn't have a full release (without -pre) for more
than a year.

Right now, I spend so much time replying e-mail, that the number of things
to do before the next release remains almost constant.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin