Re: [Quilt-dev] [PATCH, RFC] Stop using patch option -E

[Andreas Grünbacher]

Jean,

2012/12/18 Jean Delvare <address@hidden>:
> GNU patch version 2.7 and newer deals just fine with empty files,
> however our use of option -E breaks this feature. So stop using this
> option. Anyway, the manual page says: "Normally this option is
> unnecessary" and the test suite passes just fine without it.
>
> Andreas, can you remember why we were using option -E? I dug the history
> but apparently it has been there since the beginning so I couldn't find
> an explanation.

when patch is in POSIX mode or the patch format doesn't allow to distinguish
empty files from deleted files, patch deletes empty files only if the -E option
is given. If the -E option is given, patch always deletes empty files.

So if you want to use the -E option or not depends on which kinds of patches
you use: with "modern" unified or context diffs as generated by GNU diff or git,
you usually don't want -E; with other patch formats, you usually do want -E.

So I think your change makes sense; if people want -E, they can put it in
$QUILT_PATCH_OPTS.

> I suppose it may help get files deleted when using
> QUILT_NO_DIFF_TIMESTAMPS? But OTOH I would hope that GNU patch notices
> when the file name is /dev/null and acts appropriately.

Yes it does; the timestamps are not needed for that.

Thanks,
Andreas