[darcs-users] _darcs/prefs/email in patch-tag.com repos

[Eric Kow]

On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 04:54:38 -0400, Max Battcher wrote:
> On 10/11/2009 4:02, Eric Kow wrote:
> >Also, I should correct one of the errors in my earlier message:
> >_darcs/prefs/sources should be treated as internal Darcs metadata,
> >not a local pref
> 
> I would say that's a fine line distinction right there-- I've had to
> edit _darcs/prefs/sources for various reasons and I could see
> someone manually pruning it as appropriate...

I we need to think a bit more carefully about this, especially why we
make these distinctions.  I seem to be confusing myself at least!

The reason why I first said it was local information was because as you
said above, you sometimes edit it as appropriate.

The reason I later backtracked and said it was internal metadata was
because Darcs manipulates it and consults it from remote repos.
Notably, darcs copies the _darcs/prefs/sources from the remote repo and
augments it with local information.  Editing _darcs/prefs/prefs should
be probably discouraged; editing the _darcs/prefs/sources on the other
hand... is maybe kosher.  Confusing the issue is the fact that Darcs
does not currently handle the _darcs/prefs/sources very intelligently.

See
- http://bugs.darcs.net/issue1599 (authomatically expire unused caches)
- http://bugs.darcs.net/issue1159 (unionCache does not adjust cache
  paths wrt remote repository location)

Perhaps if Darcs were smarter about caches, users wouldn't need to
intervene manually and we really can treat it as purely internal
data.

-- 
Eric Kow <http://www.nltg.brighton.ac.uk/home/Eric.Kow>
PGP Key ID: 08AC04F9
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