Re: [Arx-users] Flailing around, and a segfault

[Kevin Smith]

On Mon, 2004-12-06 at 22:16 -0500, Walter Landry wrote:
> Kevin Smith <address@hidden> wrote:
> > So I'm trying to understand how to interact with a remote archive
> > (wlandry arx, in this case). The example on the ArX web site tells you
> > how to get a readonly copy, but not how to fork it so you can work on a
> > branch. Same with section 4.4 of the manual.
> > 
> > I did a "get", and then a "fork", and I was able to commit changes to my
> > local archive. But now I can't see how to merge the latest stuff off
> > ~wlandry. The answers might be in the docs, but I'm not seeing them. The
> > built-in --help commands are just a bit too terse. In particular, they
> > could use examples of what a [REVISION] might look like, or a [branch].
> 
> The command to merge is "merge".

Ok. I'm guessing I want the --in-place variant. I have absolutely no
idea what to put in for the mainline and sibling. I my mind, the
mainline would be somewhere over on ~wlandry, and the sibling would be
in my local archive. But since my commits go to my local archive, maybe
it's now my mainline?

(Checking the docs...)

address@hidden arx.old $ arx missing address@hidden
address@hidden arx.old $ arx missing address@hidden/arx
address@hidden arx.old $ arx missing address@hidden/arx.2.1
address@hidden/arx.2.1,119
address@hidden/arx.2.1,120
address@hidden/arx.2.1,121
address@hidden/arx.2.1,122
address@hidden/arx.2.1,123
address@hidden/arx.2.1,124

...third time's a charm. Again, more output would be helpful. Let's try
the merge:

address@hidden arx.old $ arx merge address@hidden/arx.2.1
No merge done.  Sibling is the same as the mainline
        address@hidden/arx.kevins,0
Problem copying a file:
boost::filesystem::copy_directory
/home/kevins/work/arx.old
address@hidden/arx.2.1

Doh! I forgot --in-place. With that, it chugs for a while...maybe a
minute or two. Then we have some conflicts. Hm. That output could be
cleaned up a bit, and the identical change probably should have been
auto-resolved. But I guess it worked, and I was able to commit. Whew.

> 
> > My best guess (looking at section 5.7.1) didn't work:
> > 
> > address@hidden test $ arx archives
> > address@hidden
> >         file:///home/kevins/_arx-archive
> > address@hidden
> >         http://superbeast.ucsd.edu/~landry/ArX/wlandry
> > address@hidden test $ arx fork address@hidden/arx test-arx arx
> > Can't fork from this branch.  It doesn't exist in the archive.
> >         address@hidden/arx
> 
> This didn't work because "arx" is not a branch with revisions.
> "arx.2.1" is, though.

Ah. Definitely could use a clearer error message. I'm still struggling
with what is an archive, what is a branch, what is a revision, etc. It's
becoming more clear, slowly.

> 
> > I would have thought that the browse command would show what is in a
> > remote archive. Apparently it only works on the local archive?
> 
> No, it should work fine with a remote archive.  If you want to browse
> only the archive, be sure to add a "/" at the end.  As in
> 
>   arx browse address@hidden/
> 
> If you omit it, it will browse the branch "address@hidden" in
> your default archive.  Yes, this is confusing.  Yes, it could be
> better documented.  Yes, it should probably give an error message if
> the branch doesn't exist in the archive.

Yup. These are the kinds of features/fixes that I can try to work on
first, as I become familiar with the source code.

> > I feel like I want to rename my local archive to eliminate the
> > "--archive" at the end. Is there a clean and simple way to do this (and
> > is it a good idea to fit in with the new ArX world?)
> 
> You can fork all of your projects to a new archive without the
> --archive at the end.  Changing what is already there is much more
> tricky.  You have to change all of the log files and patches, and
> update the checksums.  Essentially, you would be changing history, and
> ArX doesn't support that.

Fair enough. That would make a good FAQ on the wiki, some day. Maybe I
should use that as a testbed to become more familiar with the fork
command.

> > How can I view the checkin history of a single file? In particular, if
> > I'm working in my own branch of the ArX code, how can I view the history
> > of the file prior to my branching?
> 
> You can run "arx changelog" and search it for that particular file.

I suspect you meant: arx log --formatted

> Then you can read the log for that revision to maybe get an idea of
> what happened.  However, what you really want is an "annotate"
> command.  That is on the TODO (after Windows/OS X support and the new
> tag mechanism).

Yup. That is what I want. It's another thing I might be able to take a
stab at implementing.

> > I suspect if I could just grasp how ArX thinks about remote archives,
> > this would all become much more clear.
> 
> I think you're almost there.

I hope so. Somehow, the extreme minimalism of the darcs model seems more
appealing than it did a couple weeks ago. Hopefully in a couple more
days the ArX model will seem perfectly logical and simple to me.

Kevin