Re: Strange diff behavior on branch

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Thursday, July 31, 2003 at 07:47:09 (-0700), Mark D. Baushke wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: Strange diff behavior on branch 
>
> I think that the -D "timestamp" is documented as doing timestamps on the
> trunk rather than a branch at present. The "right thing" to do is probably
> to either extend the -r syntax to take -r branch:timestamp or add a new
> flag like -j branch:timestamp as the FreeBSD folks did.

I really don't like the idea of using "cvs [r]diff -j branch:date".
There's way too much room for confusion.

I don't really like the idea of "cvs [r]diff -r branch:date" either,
though if it were the only alternative it would be the better choice.

I think extending the '-D' option to allow branch would be OK.

But I don't think any of the above are necessary.....

It seems to me that it would be most logical and most elegant to simply
use the combination of '-r' and '-D' when a date on a particular branch
is desired:

        cvs [r]diff  -r branch-1 -D date-1  -r branch-2 -D date-2

A usage syntax check should exit with an error if the operand(s) to '-r'
is(are) not a branch specifier whenever '-D' is also used.


BTW, I never really liked the idea of using the order of two otherwise
identical command-line flags (with hopefully different operands) to
specify the order of the diff parameters, but I guess it's way too late
to fix that bug now.  :-)  It should have been done with a single flag
and a two-value operand:  -r rev1,rev2

-- 
                                                Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098                  VE3TCP            RoboHack <address@hidden>
Planix, Inc. <address@hidden>          Secrets of the Weird <address@hidden>