Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: give us a hand with arch

[Tom Lord]

    > From: Colin Walters <address@hidden>

    > On Fri, 2003-09-26 at 16:24, Tom Lord wrote:

    > > I don't understand why you don't create a shell alias or tiny script
    > > on your path.

    > It's not *entirely* trivial.  Here's the implementation of "commit" from
    > my wrapper script [...]

Ok.  While I don't think the functionality should exactly mimic your
script, the desirability of interacting reasonably with `-L' and other
arguments makes an excellent case --- that's a good example of why the
functionality isn't just a matter of "running two commands in
sequence".

I happen to not like two things about your script:

        1) Your script will never invoke an editor on an existing
           log file.    I think that should be possible.

        2) The convention of using an unchanged log file to abort a
           commit seems wrong to me.  Isn't it likely to be the case,
           not a majority of the time but often enough to be annoying,
           that you start to write a log file, perhaps save it without
           exiting the editor -- then realize that you shouldn't
           commit yet (but don't want _this_ commit to ever complete)?


So, what would you think of:

*) a ~/.arch-params log-editor setting

   The presense of this setting tells what editor to use and implies 
   that if no log is provided, the editor should be run.


*) -E arguments

   A -E argument means to edit the log file, even if it already exists
   or is defined by a -L argument.    One could say, for example:

        tla commit -L 'the quick fix' -E 

   and the editor would be fired up on a file containing:

        Summary: the quick fix
        Keywords:


and the one I think might be controversial:

*) an optional, tiny interaction loop

   Unless some argument, say `--non-interactive' is provided, and an 
   editor is invoked, then when the editor exits the user is prompted:

        Commit? ([a]bort, [v]iew log, [e]dit log, default: [y]es)

-t