[darcs-devel] New ignore and unignore commands

David Roundy droundy at darcs.net
Fri Sep 15 10:37:59 PDT 2006


On Fri, Sep 15, 2006 at 02:50:28PM +0200, Juliusz Chroboczek wrote:
> I'm redirecting this back to the users list, which I feel is where it belongs.
> 
> Me:
> 
> >> No strong opinions here, but I actually prefer Pietro Abate's
> >> suggestion -- add a new option '--exclude-files'' that takes a regexp
> >> of files to ignore.  As far as I can tell, this has the full
> >> functionality of ignored_file -- just add ``ALL exclude-files ...''
> >> to your prefs file.

I agree with this idea.  The use of an ignore file should usually be a
"weird" case, while the ephemeral command-line case could be useful
many times (as the inverse of specifying files you want to record
changes to on the command line).  I like the boring semantics and
setpref behavior, since it allows thinks like excluding files for
everyone who uses the repository (by keeping the boring file in the
repo itself), which is handy for groups of people who use record -l
often.

And, as you say, the defaults mechanism (which I really like, oddly
enough) would then allow persistent local ignoring of a file.

[...]
> Exclude clearly has the right semantics for an ephemeral setting (a
> command line option, as opposed to a prefs file).

Hmmm... yes.  :)

> So the distinction is useful, but is it useful enough to be included
> in Darcs, and hence impose an additional conceptual burden on all new
> users?  I don't have a strong opinion (I'd like David to make a call),
> but it's certinly not useful enough to take up two good command names
> such as ``darcs ignore'' and ``unignore''.

I'd say, as a flag, --exclude-files would be worthwhile.  Of course,
at this stage, it's really Eric's call, but since he asked for
advice...  :)

If adding flags like this ever makes record --help too confusing, we
could rethink how --help is organized.  Until then, as long as the
semantics seem clear and useful, and the flag name is reasonably
clear, it seems like adding more flags is generally a good thing.
-- 
David Roundy




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