[Gnu-arch-users] =partner-versions

[Aaron Bentley]

Harald Meland wrote:
> [David Allouche]

> I'm under the impression that tla reserves the double-prefix-char
> filenames for its own use; hence, aba and friends ought to use names
> like "+merge-sources" rather than "++merge-sources".

I guess that's my cue:

Mattieu Moy (one of the xtla authors) and I have been discussing a 
common standard for describing partner-versions; related trees that are 
suitable for merging with.  Here's what we've come up with:

{arch}/=partner-versions is a file that contains one or more 
partner-versions.  It contains one or more fully-qualified version 
names, separated by newlines.  This listing may contain the tree-version.

Questions:
Q: Why a source file?  Why may it include the tree-version?
A: To make it easier for several people to collaborate on a project, 
using a common list of partner-versions.  It might make sense to allow 
for a precious variant as well.

Q: Why just versions?  Why not archive locations, descriptions, etc?
A: To reduce wheel-reinvention.  Archive location determination and 
version descriptions are valuable outside the context of 
partner-versions, so they don't belong here.  (

'tla-archive-locate' provides a way to locate archives.  Tom's 
version-variables proposal suggests an approach that could be used to 
describe versions.  Johannes Berg's log templates (included in my 
integration) can also be used to insert a description header into log files.

Comments?

Current versions of aba provide support for =partner-versions in the 
"merge", "replay-micro" and "missing-merge" commands.

Aaron
--
Aaron Bentley
Director of Technology
Panometrics, Inc.