Re: [Monotone-devel] branch abbreviations

[Ethan Blanton]

Derek Scherger spake unto us the following wisdom:
> Fri Jun 15 14:46 < elb> boy, I would love some branch aliases
> Fri Jun 15 14:47 < elb> so I could use, e.g., ipp to get
> im.pidgin.pidgin, and ipp.whatever ot get im.pidgin.pidgin.whatever

[snip]

> how about something like this:
> 
> address@hidden ~/monotone/mainline $ ./mtn heads -b .inventory
> mtn: branch 'net.venge.monotone.basic_io.inventory' is currently merged:
> b4787bd05558f1af4cd305637bc018dcee042b2e address@hidden
> 2007-05-21T21:06:35
> address@hidden ~/monotone/mainline $ ./mtn heads -b .basic_io.inventory
> mtn: branch 'net.venge.monotone.basic_io.inventory' is currently merged:
> b4787bd05558f1af4cd305637bc018dcee042b2e address@hidden
> 2007-05-21T21:06:35

I would prefer explicit aliases, myself.  Perhaps a table of aliases
in .monotonerc (I would prefer a table to a hook, so perhaps a hook
which consults a table, by default?) would fit my desires more
closely.  One reason I say that, is that a branch family I find myself
typing quite often has 'measurement' at its uppermost distinguishing
level; I prefer to name branches something meaningful to me, and deal
with the long names that this engenders when necessary, but if I had
arbitrary aliases, I could reduce this to, say, 'meas'.

> What this is doing is looking for a branch that matches the speficied
> suffix (indicated by the preceeding "."). Of the ~200 branches in my
> monotone database there are very few cases where the last component of
> the branch name is not unique so this seems like a reasonable strategy.
> It does totally assume that you have named your branches as suggested in
> the monotone docs though so it may not help in all cases.
> 
> Thoughts? I have the basic patch working but need to update tests and
> things. Do we want this on mainline?

I would appreciate it, myself, either as I have discussed or as you
have implemented.

Ethan

-- 
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws [that have no remedy
for evils].  They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes.
                -- Cesare Beccaria, "On Crimes and Punishments", 1764

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