[Monotone-devel] seeming monotone status/diff/update in-consistency; file timestamp question; other

[David Hoke]

Regarding monotone --full-version:

 

Running on: Windows NT/2000/XP (5.1, build 2600) on ia32 (level 15, rev 1027)
Changes since base revision:
new_manifest [372d1c1e2c97f00c8a329d7f2dfae6ba28fe1db6]

 

old_revision [d59847072bb689e952ab21db7f9fababdb80a19f]
old_manifest [372d1c1e2c97f00c8a329d7f2dfae6ba28fe1db6]

 

  Generated from data cached in the distribution;
  further changes may have been made.

 

 ....

 

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ONE

assuming something similar to the following series of commands (and whatever was necessary to prep for them)(output results omitted):

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cd workingcopy1

monotone --branch=testbranch1 setup .

echo version 1 of file 1 >file1.txt

monotone add file1.txt

monotone commit --message="commiting initial version of file"

cd ..\workingcopy2

monotone checkout .

type file1.txt

cd ..\workingcopy1

echo verion2 of file 1 >file1.txt

monotone status

monotone diff

monotone commit --message="version 2 of file 1"

cd ..\workingcopy2

***Note this point****

monotone status

monotone diff

type file1.txt

monotone update

type file1.txt

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At the "***Note this point***" point, I would expect a difference to be displayed, as workingcopy2 contains verion 1 of the file, while its corresponding monotone branch contains version 2 of the file.  But, no difference is shown.

 

However, after requesting the update, version 2 of the file is retrieved.  This means that monotone did indeed determine there was a difference and operated to eliminate that difference - but neither the status nor the diff operations would show what that difference was.

 

(This of course assumes that what I typed above does accurately mimic what I actually executed.)

 

1) This sort of functionality could be useful for any wishing to use monotone in a more "centralized" repository fashion (maintaining a single network-accessible version of the monotone database).

2) Without having tried it, I'm guessing there might be similar issues if one wished to retrieve one branch somewhere, and then diff it against a different branch, needing to evaluate/"cherry-pick" for possible inclusion of only certain changes between the two branches.  But no, I haven't tried it, hoping someone can alert me as to whether it should and/or does work, before I reach the point of actually needing this functionality.

 

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TWO

It appears that files do not carry any sort of date/timestamp into monotone storage with them.  I would very much like to have that information retained (at least the probable last modification stamp) and restored when files are retrieved from monotone storage.  (Probably stored in GMT zone range, and adjusted as needed for system/timezone setting of extract destination.)

 

Is there a specific reason that monotone should _not_ do this?

 

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THREE

Can someone clarify usage of "revision ID/selector/ID"?  The docs speak of a revision ID, then mention selectors, which it sounds like can be used in place of revision IDs (or that revision ID is a specific case of a selector), but I (without going now to try to see where) seem to have had failures attempting to use non-revision-ID selectors in (at least some) places that command syntax indicated wanted an "ID".  (Maybe I've just gotten confused because of the d:yesterday/d:today failures mentioned further below, and selectors really are generally interchangeable.)

 

And a pass through the docs/tutorial to attempt to clarify this (perhaps using "revID" in places whether that is the only thing allowed, with selID used in places where the more general selector is allowed) may be helpful to others as well as myself.  (Plain "ID" is used in multiple doc places without any clarification.  My assumption was that everything should therefore accept a general-purpose "selector" in those locations, but that doesn't seem to be true for me.)

 

Also, attempting to use d:yesterday or d:now (mentioned in help) seem to bring complaints from monotone:

monotone: warning: [string "<std hooks>"]:749: `date' format too long
monotone: misuse: selector 'yesterday' is not a valid date

monotone: warning: [string "<std hooks>"]:742: `date' format too long
monotone: misuse: selector 'today' is not a valid date

 

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FOUR

Efforts to build monotone have led me to the point where I seem to be missing a "libintl.h" (I think) - can someone tell me what I need to obtain to have this.  (I have attempted building with both cygwin and mingw - I believe I got farthest with mingw so far.)  And could someone clarify what external dependencies actually exist for building - I recall notes mentioning "boost" (which I've retrieved and at least partially built), but I thought docs indicated no other external dependencies for building.

 

Thanks,

David