RE: Checksum failure: serious problem or not?

[Jim.Hyslop]

address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden wrote:
> Eric Siegerman writes:
> > 
> > The "P" status and the "checksum failure" message should both go
> > away.  (Patched and fully-refetched files should all be labelled
> > "U".)
> 
> I might be convinced about "P" status (although, personally, 
> I like it),
> but I strongly disagree about the checksum failure message.  It
> indicates a serious confusion about the state of the working file that
> the user *must* investigate.  It indicates that there were 
> local changes
> to the file that CVS doesn't know about and is in the process of
> discarding.  Unless you like losing changes, you must figure out what
> happened to get you into that state and ensure that it doesn't happen
> again in the future.
Well, there's a couple of problems with that. First of all, the error
message does not say anything like that - the message is quite terse and
most users wouldn't know to check their files. Second, by the time the
operation completes, any trace of the original file is gone, so it's almost
impossible to investigate exactly what changed - or what CVS _thought_ had
changed. The original file is not backed up.

So, I think CVS should be modified either to:
1) eliminate the "checksum failure" message, or
2) modify the error message to make it clearer what happened, and rename the
original file to .#whatever.

> -Larry Jones
> 
> I think grown-ups just ACT like they know what they're doing. 
> -- Calvin
I second that motion ;=)

-- 
Jim Hyslop 
Senior Software Designer 
Leitch Technology International Inc. (<http://www.leitch.com/>) 
Columnist, C/C++ Users Journal (<http://www.cuj.com/experts>)