Re: 1.4.0->1.4.0.1 problem

[Nils Philippsen <nils redhat de>]

On Fri, 6 Apr 2001 jgotts linuxsavvy com wrote:

>
> In message <002201c0bdda$50f7a120$9756623e e6z1t6>, "Germano Rizzo" writes:
>
> > some time ago, I reported that (well, I reported this only for two, but
> >it's the same) the packages
>
> >gnome-core 1.4.0
> >control-center 1.4.0
> >gnome-applets 1.4.0
> >gnome-games 1.4.0
>
> > were broken by the process of applying the patch to 1.4.0.1. More
> >detailfully (ough! I've invented a word, I fear!), when making `make dist'
> >on them after patching, the make process failed.
> > I only want to report that this happens because the new packages have some
> >pictures added; for example the package gnome-applets have many new
> >documentation (mainly japanese translations) that contains pictures, in the
> >directory figures. Invoking diff with the switches `-ruN' ignores these
> >binary files, so when one makes dist, the process won't find them, and
> >fails. Anyway, the compilation/installation process is still ok, because an
> >error in the help directories isn't fatal.
> > So, this was the reason; I don't think it's *so* important, but it's always
> >a fault of the new package... a solution would be to invoke diff with the
> >`-a' switch, but I think this won't behave *too* well; another would be, as
> >suggested by Miguel De Icaza, adopting xdelta.
>
> This a longstanding problem with incremental diffs on ftp.gnome.org.  I'd hate
> to see the elimination of these patches, though, for the majority of situations
> where no binary files are added/replaced.

I think it would be fairly easy to come up with a script that (given the
old and the new tree) generates a patch for all text files and a tar of
all new binaries and a list or a script to remove all obsolete files.

> I've taught my colleagues the fine art of reading diffs, and you lose that
> ability completely with xdelta files.

Yes, that's definitely a major drawback with xdelta.

Nils
-- 
         Nils Philippsen / +49.711.96437.250 / nils redhat de
       Red Hat GmbH / Hauptstätter Straße 58 / D70178 Stuttgart
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