[darcs-devel] [darcs #480] query language for darcs changes et al.

[David Roundy]

On Tue, Aug 02, 2005 at 05:46:42PM +0200, Jan Scheffczyk wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> > The current interface of darcs changes and darcs annotate includes
> > various options that affect the criteria of patch selection and the
> > form of output.  These options seem insufficient for most people's
> > needs of querying patches, and should probably be replaced by a
> > proper query language.

We've already got a sort of pathetic mini-language in --matches, which
supports ||, && and a few functions.  I'd like to see that extended a bit
(e.g. better date support, perhaps support for querying on files touched),
but I don't think we want a full query language.

> Why don't we use XQuery instead of developing an own proprietary query 
> language and processors?
> This would just require to export patches to XML --- and would 
> certainly come almost for free with native XML/OpenOffice patches 
> that I am proposing ;-).

A tool to do that wouldn't be bad, but I imagine it would be hard to do
something like tracking file renames (i.e. if I want to ask for all changes
affecting the file that is currently named "foo", but has been renamed
several times).
-- 
David Roundy
http://www.darcs.net