[darcs-devel] [patch470] Label --set-default note as a HINT. (and 2 more)

Petr Rockai me at mornfall.net
Thu Nov 18 20:12:45 UTC 2010


Hi,

Eric Kow <bugs at darcs.net> writes:

> Thu Nov 18 16:36:34 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey at darcs.net>
> | $ darcs get /tmp/chxsarchsae
> | 
> | darcs failed:  Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae (/tmp/chxsarchsae/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not exist (No such file or directory))
> | 
> | HINT: Check with the repository owner to see if the following files
> |       are readable:
> | 
> |         1. _darcs/format    - might not exist; that's OK
> |         2. _darcs/inventory - should exist be if #1 is missing
> |         3. _darcs/hashed_inventory - should exist if #2 is missing
> | 
> |       It's OK if they just don't exist.

This looks pretty nice, *but*: what does "It's OK if they just don't
exist" mean? It's obviously *not* OK, since the thing didn't work
right...

Also: it's nice that the HINT is pretty, but the error above it is
horrible. It's unreadable, redundant and long. So I'd propose:

ERROR: Not a repository: /tmp/chxsarchsae.
       Error opening _darcs/inventory: No such file or directory.

 HINT: ...

We have been hiding from the exception reporting code for way too
long... Fixing our error reports would account for a huge leap in
usability, IMHO. (Cf. the confusing and ugly "could not find file"
errors.)

Also, your hint text seems to be misleading, since the exception is
about inventory, and your text made me believe that if inventory does
not exist, the last attempt is at hashed_inventory. From the exception,
this doesn't seem to be the case. (But I could be mistaken.)

>
> Thu Nov 18 17:14:46 GMT 2010  Eric Kow <kowey at darcs.net>
>   * Label the unreachable repository note as a HINT.
>
> | HINT: I could not reach the following repositories:
> |         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/blalrch
> |         /home/kowey/PROJECTS/arghle-bagle
> |       If you're not using them, you should probably delete
> |       the corresponding entries from _darcs/prefs/sources.
Good.

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Gosh! You should tell your university how wrong this is. : - )

Yours,
   Petr.


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