[darcs-users] The minimal set of changes

[Ganesh Sittampalam]

>> I think this is an important topic though, particularly if/when darcs
>> acquires more and more complicated patch types.
> 
> Can you describe what you mean here? Which "easy" patches has
> darcs got now?

Darcs has basic patch types that address standard "tree-based"
operations: file/directory add/remove, and diff-like "hunk" patches.

It also has a couple of slightly more sophisticated patch types: file
move (which includes renames) and replace. Those are the ones that
either have to be manually chosen by the user, or can sometimes be
automatically inferred by --look-for-{moves,replaces}

In the future we'd like to add more sophisticated options too. Top of my
own list is "hunk move" where you move a chunk of content from one file
to another.

> On the other hand, I think we could treat patches as changes of
> *sets* of files. You can't know which file was the previous file
> (rename, cp, etc.). I think it could be interesting to focus on
> contents on the files rather than in the path names (using
> sha hashes for example). The change in path name could be a path too.
> I think git use it so. I don't say we have to copy that, but perhaps
> darcs could be more clever....

Yes, I think darcs should try to become better at inferring these
changes automatically. The existing flags are a start but no doubt could
become better.

Cheers,

Ganesh