Re: [Monotone-devel] [patch]move attributes on rename

[Nathaniel Smith]

On Wed, Apr 27, 2005 at 06:00:48AM +0200, Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker wrote:
> In message <address@hidden> on Tue, 26 Apr 2005 20:47:06 -0400, Joel Reed 
> <address@hidden> said:
> 
> joelwreed> i like that idea. while we're on the subject why doesn't
> joelwreed> monotone rename also move the actual file as well?
> 
> I suspect it's mostly about ortogonality.  Why doesn't "drop" really
> remove the file?  Why doesn't creating a file automagically add it
> (yeah, I know there's a technological challenge there, but let's
> disregard that for the sake of the argument, eh?  :-))?

"drop" doesn't really remove the file because that's dangerous; you
may with to simply remove the file from source control ("oops, didn't
mean to include this in my add *!"), rather than actually delete it.

I think the argument then is that "rename" doesn't actually rename so
it will be consistent with "drop".

There is also the case where you've done something silly, like do a
rename by hand accidentally, and you want to just tell monotone what
you've done, rather than move your file back just so monotone can
re-move it.

It's true this a little confusing, though.  Easiest solution: add a
"--do-it" command-specific-option to drop/rename, which tells them to
actually delete or rename the file in question.  Alternate solution:
make the default to do it, and add a "--not-really"
command-specific-option. For this to be acceptable, though, I think on
"drop" we'd have to cache the deleted file somewhere, for disaster
recovery.  We've already discussed how to do this for "update" and
"revert", so maybe this wouldn't be so bad.  But it would be blocked
on somebody implementing the general "oops" recovery functionality
first.  (It might be a good idea to do this in any case, if we're
actually going to delete the user's file; but it only seems
_necessary_ if we make the _default_ to delete the file.)

-- Nathaniel

-- 
"But suppose I am not willing to claim that.  For in fact pianos
are heavy, and very few persons can carry a piano all by themselves."