[darcs-users] making add/remove file commute with content change

[Ben Franksen]

Ketil Malde wrote:
> Thanks, I'm less confused now.

Good, me too ;-) I am working this out as I go...

> So this would make it possible to
> 
> a) pull patches that touch deleted files, e.g. for that crucial bug
> fix from the stable tree that also touches some files that have been
> obsoleted - and thus removed - in the development version

Yes, exactly.

> and, by extension:
> 
> b) enable partial repositories, just like Some Other VCSes (Admittedly
> with somewhat less benefit, since you need to lug around more
> information to make it work.  Perhaps this could be make to work
> without pulling patches that only touch non-existing files?)

I am not exactly sure what you mean with 'partial repositories'. Are you
thinking about e.g. CVS where you can work with only a subdirectory of the
whole repository? If I understand you correctly, you think this could be
done (with the ghost proposal) by 'darcs remove'ing stuff that you don't
want to have lying around. Maybe, but why would you want to do this?

Cheers
Ben