Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Ruminations on Arch Desiderata

[Doran Moppert]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2003 at 09:18:22PM -0700, Tom Lord wrote:
> There is a feature idea that floats around on the back burner for
> making it possible to declare a particular file to be of some specific
> (non-diff-patchable) type.....

back burner? Damn ... I thought that it would be a natural extension on the
inventory tagging mechanism to be able to associate "types" with files, so
that alternative (pluggable) diff/merge tools could be used.

To bring up one of your favourites, XML can be diff/patched with specialised
programs easily (err freshmeat for xmldiff). And while tools don't exist for a
lot of other binary formats, it would be beneficial (for me at least) to have
the capability in an RCS.

<think iteration=2>
then again, maybe this is orthogonal to inventory tagging and should be
handled with /bin/file .. but of course file is imperfect.

actually format-specific visual diff is a human interface issue: best left out
of arch lest I start distributing changesets that rely on some arcane tool
I've hacked up ....
</think>

Sounds like you were right. Ignore this message :)