[darcs-users] post-1.0: "isolated directories"?

[Andrew Pimlott]

On Sun, Oct 03, 2004 at 07:46:48PM -0700, Adam Megacz wrote:
> Would it be hard to add some sort of flag 'darcs add --isolate foo/'
> indicating that no patch recorded from now on (until 'darcs remove
> foo', of course) may NOT include changes both to things inside foo
> (and its subdirectories) as well as things outside foo.

Ok, I'll bite:  Why is it necessary to add a restriction like this?  Why
can't darcs keep track of everything "in its head" and only show you the
results for one directory?

> With something like this in place, it should be possible to pull "only
> changes to this directory", right?

I think I see what you're getting at, but I would counter-propose:
Since you're already willing to put a wall between different parts of
the repo, why not 1) support partial checkouts and 2) get your parts
into separate repositories.

Ie, instead of isolate /foo, something like

    darcs get --exclude foo/ master
    mkdir foo; cd foo
    darcs get --subtree foo/ master

Your "pull only this directory" has some appeal, but since you can only
pull directories you've planned for in advance, I think it's too limited
to be worth the complexity.

Partial checkouts might also be complicated, but in my view it is a
natural operation that would be generally useful.

Andrew