[darcs-users] How to record only patches, not original files

[Robin Bate Boerop]

On 18-Jun-07, at 2:59 PM, Josef Svenningsson wrote:
>> That's true.  I was thinking instead of the effort required by me to
>> distribute my patches.  Instead of just pushing patches to the repo
>> whenever I like, I would have to use darcs send to create a patche,
>> darcs apply to apply the patch to the repo, and then (if that works)
>> I would have to make the patch available for download.  It is that
>> kind of work that I want to avoid.  Further, doing it that way, I
>> could not use darcs optimize to "bunch" patches together.
>>
> I'm not quite sure I follow. Why would you want to do 'darcs apply'
> and to what repo? Is it just for safety measure, to make sure that the
> patch bundle is OK?

Yes, sorry, that is what I was thinking.

> Apart from that, yes there is a little bit of work involved for you as
> a maintainer. You have to do 'darcs send' and make the resulting patch
> bundle available for download. But if you write a little script it
> should only be a single command. That seems feasible to me. In
> particular it is the same amount of work as doing a 'darcs push' to a
> public repo, which is, as I understand it, the method you first
> contemplated.

You make a good point.  Thanks for your help, Josef!

> It's true that you wouldn't be able to bunch the patches together into
> a single patch with this method. But the only method I know which
> accomplishes this is to create a partial repo and that would mean that
> any user would have to download the whole code base, not just your
> changes.  That seems contrary to the goals you mentioned earlier. So
> while I agree with you that it would be nice to bunch patches together
> I don't know of any way to do it.

Does anyone know if it is possible to make a partial repo such that  
the repo does not allow non-local users to download patches which  
create the parts of the repo which were there before the --checkpoint?

Can --no-pristine-tree be used to help with this somehow?

-- 
Robin Bate Boerop
http://www.shorestreet.com