[Monotone-devel] Re: Feature request: monotone grep

[Bruce Stephens]

Shaun Jackman <address@hidden> writes:

> 2005/11/8, Bruce Stephens <address@hidden>:

[...]

>> I'd worry that people would want to use other flags of grep, and
>> then where do you stop?
>
> I think the same argument can be made of `montone diff', but it's
> such a useful task that some basic form of the command within
> monotone would be a benefit. Most of the time I call GNU grep simply
> as `grep', so I wouldn't worry terribly about the extra options.

I imagine it's as much expectations as utility.  I expect to be able
to do "diff", but I don't expect to be able to grep through versions
of files.  Maybe some SCMs provide that, and I just happen not to have
used those?

[...]

> Perhaps there should be a standard way for monotone to call out to
> helper scripts, where `monotone grep', for example calls out to the
> script `monotone-grep' -- in /usr/share/monotone/bin or the path if
> that fails -- with all the necessary information provided on the
> command line and in the environment.

That idea came up before, and didn't get much support, IIRC.  I think
a problem is that everyone's monotone could be different, so it's
difficult to document and support, and there's the potential of
clashing command names and things.

On the other hand, Mercurial and Bazaar-ng have that kind of thing,
and I imagine it works well enough for them.  Maybe things are
different now?