Re: [Monotone-devel] File diff command-line UI thoughts

[Kevin Smith]

graydon hoare wrote:
> Kevin Smith <address@hidden> writes:
> > Other monotone commands require you to specify the type of the id,
> > such as "manifest" or "file". Which, by the way, I find slightly
> > irritating. Why can't it just figure out whether I have given it a
> > file's id or a manifest's id, and do the right thing?
>
> because if I only write "a3f" there's actually a reasonable chance of
> it completing differently as a file or a manifest. remember we accept
> unambiguous SHA1 prefixes :(

I noticed that the docs claim that you can pass either a manifest id or 
a file id, but the code disagrees. Only a manifest id is accepted.

As long as the passed id-fragment unambiguously matches just one 
database object (a file OR a manifest), it seems reasonable to accept 
it. If it matches multiple, monotone would probably have to list each 
possible completions along with its type (manifest or file).

It's not a showstopper for me, but both in the code and as a user, it's 
not clear to me why manifests and files are in completely different 
worlds (namespaces).

Kevin