Re: gnulib warnings when compiling Faddeeva.cc

[Steven G. Johnson]

Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> On 15 December 2012 13:18, Steven G. Johnson <address@hidden> wrote:
> > Jordi Gutiérrez Hermoso wrote:
> > > Well, this is why we have a DVCS, right? We can easily maintain two
> > > branches of this file. Probably not worth the effort for such minor
> > > cosmetic differences, though.
> >
> > DCVS doesn't help with something like this -- if you want to maintain two
> > versions of a file that differ in their indentation etcetera, then you have
> > to make all changes to both versions manually, because diff and patch won't
> > work.
>
> hg doesn't actually use diff(1) and patch(1). And a DVCS does help
> with this. You make the change once in one branch, you never have to
> make it again in the other branch. You just merge it to the other
> branch and the DVCS history makes it in the corresponding locations.

hg uses difflib, which is line-based delta algorithm similar in effect 
if not in implementation; in particular, it treats lines with differing 
whitespace and similar "cosmetic" changes as entirely different.

And because the delta algorithm is line-based, trying to merge changes 
from one branch to another branch in which the indenting has been 
changed will result in a merge conflict, which you will have to clean up 
manually.