[darcs-devel] Scriptability, GUI

[Martin Ellis]

On Monday 29 Aug 2005 17:56, Daniel Lutz wrote:
> 1) It must be possible to address each patch in a repository
> unambiguosly in every command which accepts patches (e.g. diff,
> changes, unrecord).

Ian Lynagh has just pointed me to part of the manual that explains this

In the "Common options to darcs commands" section, under "Match"
see:

  "This is intended to be used, for example, by programs allowing you
    to view darcs repositories (e.g. cgi scripts like viewCVS)."

It's talking about the patch hash.  You seem to be able to get that from 
darcs changes --xml-output.

> 2) It must be possible to get the file which comes out when all patches
> until some patch are applied to an empty file. This is mainly required
> to allow the usage of external (graphical) diff tools.

I thought this was discussed before somewhere, and I can't find it now.

One option was simply to use get to create a new repo to the given tag
and then just copy the file.  Not particularly efficient, maybe someone else 
can remember...

> 3) Repository locking. In BitKeeper there is a (blocking) block
> command. Something similar would greatly improve the robustness of the
> repository when using GUIs and shell scripts.

I'm not sure I see where the problem is here, unless you start using things 
like unpull....  On the other hand, it's Friday afternoon, and I'm probably 
missing something.

> What do you think:
> - Are there already (clean) solutions for this in the current darcs
> which I didn't see?
> - Is this the direction in the development of darcs anyway?

Perhaps these #darcs comments are helpful.  At least, they partially
explain the lack of other response:

 "I've already seen hundreds of possible future GUIs for various
  open source projects be announced and then never materialize.
  Including one for darcs"

  "People are plenty supportive of the idea of a GUI for darcs."

  "By the way, there is one already, sort of -- its the Eclipse darcs
   integration.

On the other hand, I guess you might find it very difficult if the you run 
into trouble and if the developers still won't even acknowledge your 
emails...

Cheers
Martin