[darcs-users] darcs patch: Add Patch-salt as ignored prefix

[Trent W. Buck]

zooko <zooko at zooko.com> writes:

> On Oct 8, 2008, at 3:10 AM, Eric Kow wrote:
>
>>> obnoxiously named Ignore-this-patch-salt:, with future additions
>>> like Ignore-this-hash-signature:,
>>> Ignore-this-<mytool>-<my>-<fancy>-<metadata>:, etc.
>>
>> I'd like us to make a decision on this by tomorrow if possible.
>> Is Tommy's "obnoxious" idea acceptable to everyone?
>
> The thing I'm worried about is someone writing "Ignore-this-part:
> this patch is a really important change to X functionality, but you
> can ignore it if you are just looking at Y functionality.  Thanks",
> and then having that line disappear from their patch comment.
>
> It would be really nice if there were an unambiguous encoding so that
> no patch comment could be misinterpreted by darcs as an "ignore this"
> metadata field.
> [...]
> (This is the difference between "in-band" vs. "out-of-band"
> signalling, or between ambiguous and unambiguous encoding.)

Indeed, I'm confused as to why extra fields are being embedded in the
long description, rather than extending (changing?) the patch format.
Sure, the latter is more disruptive, but to me it sounds like the Right
Thing -- if only because it avoids the issue you mention.