[darcs-users] [patch351] Optimize darcs diff.

[me at mornfall.net]

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 19, 2010 at 02:42:59PM +0100, Eric Kow wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 23:15:19 +0200, Petr Rockai wrote:
> > this also breaks with non-hashed repositories. Personally I would like
> > to see them deprecated anyway, so that we can stop adding code to make
> > them work.
> 
> In what way?  It didn't jump out at me when I tried to review the patch
> (which seemed fairly straightforward)

because we apply the patches to trees in pristine.hashed to avoid keeping
everything in memory if the change happens to be really big (so that even
though it will take a long time, it won't swap your machine do death).

The 'efficient' patch application is only implemented for hashed trees, since
it's much trickier for plain trees. We also take advantage of the fact that
most files usually stay untouched, so they are shared with actual pristine.

So while it would be possible to do this with plain pristine, it would be extra
work and it would be less efficient.

Yours,
   Petr.