[Gnu-arch-users] Using Arch to track non-Arch upstreams

[John Goerzen]

Hello,

One of the most common problems that I run into with tools like Arch,
cvs, and subversion is tracking upstreams that have no public version
tracking system or are using one that I'm not.  They usually
distribute either diffs from one version to the next, or just put out
tarballs of each version.

With some relatively stable projects, this is not terribly difficult
with most version control systems, including Arch.

With some others, especially large ones, the task gets much more
complicated.  Files and directories get added, deleted, renamed, and
moved, and tracking changes across those actions can be difficult.

Subversion comes with a script called svn_load_dirs that I can use
when importing new versions of such upstreams.  It will identify the
additions, deletions, and renames and let me manually match up the old
version with the new.  The tool stinks, but it's better than nothing.
(It essentially runs "svn cp", "svn mv", etc. behind the scenes.)

Arch doesn't have such a tool.  Moreover, I'd think that putting
taglines in the source file would be a recipe for disaster.  When a
file moves and you're using diffs or tarballs from upstream, there is
essentially a delete of the old file and an add of the new -- and that
doesn't preserve local changes.

Does anyone have good suggestions for this problem?