[darcs-users] Automatic darcs

Martin Pool mbp at sourcefrog.net
Fri Aug 6 05:21:28 UTC 2004


On  6 Aug 2004, Ketil Malde <ketil at ii.uib.no> wrote:
> "S. Alexander Jacobson" <alex at alexjacobson.com> writes:
> 
> > On Win32, Microsoft provides "FileSystemWatcher"
> > which provides an app with notification of any
> > changes within a particular directory (I assume
> > something similar is available on linux and os/x).
> 
> select(2)?

No, select doesn't do that.

You can use fam or dnotify, but they can lose information (as, I
believe, can the MS interface.)  So you need a way to discover things
that changed while the program wasn't listening.

> > Any reason not to use such a facility to execute
> > "darcs add", "darcs remove", and "darcs move"
> > automatically in response to filesystem changes?

You know about record --look, don't you?

The only thing that can't do is automatically find renamed files.
That's not hard to do in userspace, by looking for similar files or
(on unix) checking inode numbers.  Do you really rename files often
enough for it to be a big deal?

> I generally use VC to record changes at points in time when it makes
> sense, and provide a sensible message.

Right, I agree.  darcs seems to encourage that way of working.

-- 
Martin 




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