Autopatch plugin need some testing

[Stefan Wold]

On Fri, 2007-06-29 at 09:18 +0200, Duncan Gibson wrote:
> > To try it, create a $MOONBASE/zlocal/_patches directory. In this
> > directory create a $MODULE directory that correspond to the module
> > you want to autopatch. Put your patch files in that dir and run
> > lin $MODULE. If you want a patch only to match a certain version,
> > create $MOONBASE/zlocal/_patches/$MODULE/$VERSION and put your
> > patches there.
> 
> Ratler, you clearly have a particular itch that this patch plugin will
> scratch, but I don't quite see what the major advantage of a separate
> _patches directory outside zlocal will be.

It's not outside zlocal though, it's inside zlocal dir. The reason for
this is to make sure no core changes is really needed, and when moonbase
is updated _patches will go along with zlocal, less stuff to track.

> 
> I can understand that having some means of associating a patch with a
> module without having to modify the module files may be an advantage
> if you want to apply some local customisation that does not really
> make sense for the rest of the Lunar users. 

I think you're wrong. Several of my friends that run lunar have
requested such a feature for a long time already (me included). Today
they have loads of zlocal modules that only apply patches and they find
it tiresome to update modules manually everytime a new moonbase is
fetched.


> But why does the _patches
> directory need to be separate. Would it not make more sense to run
> lvu edit $MODULE to create a zlocal copy, and then create a _patches
> in that copy? Generic patches could live in zlocal/$MODULE/_patches
> and version specific could live in zlocal/$MODULE/_patches/$VERSION.
> Tools that track local customisations would only need to look in
> zlocal and not somewhere else too. [I thought that I'd posted such
> a script to the forum or ML last year, but I can't find it now :-( ]

I expect that a lunar update will bump any outdated modules and if I
have a local patch for one of those modules I want it to be applied if
possible without the need to do lvu unedit && lvu edit again to get the
latest changes. Thus the only sane option is to have _patches directory
inside zlocal. Also it's a lot easier to find what custom patches you
have for modules if they are in a seperate dir. Also if you accidently
do a lvu unedit for a module containing _patches dir it will be gone as
well, which is really bad. To circumvent that a patch for the core tool
would be needed and I'm pretty sure sofar would say no to that.

-- 
Sincerely
Stefan Wold