Re: [Gnu-arch-users] tla patch queue manager 0.1

[Colin Walters]

On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 23:24, Robert Anderson wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 19:06, Colin Walters wrote:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > After today's discussion about patch queue managers on IRC, I thought to
> > myself that a simple one should be pretty easy to write.
> 
> If you could, I have absolutely no idea what a "patch queue manager"
> is.  Can you describe what problem it solves, and how?

Yeah.  To me, it's a way to have a centralized repository that patches
are merged into from various contributors' archives.  I think the term
is sufficiently amorphous that other people will have varying thoughts
on what a PQM is.

So the centralized repository is at the center of the merge graph, and
is managed entirely by the program.  The various contributors all tag
their sources from the main branch.  They do work, commit patches, etc. 
When they reach a good milestone, they do something like this:

echo 'star-merge address@hidden/mm--mainline--0 address@hidden/mm--jane--0' | 
agpg --clearsign | mail -s 'implement playlists' address@hidden

Here address@hidden/mm--mainline--0 is the central branch, and the
address@hidden one is a developer.

In my tla-pqm prototype, this email would go via procmail into
tla-pqm.py, which would attempt to do a star-merge.  If there are any
conflicts, it simply rejects the patch.  tla-pqm.py also allows for
pre-commit hooks; for example you could have a pre-commit hook requiring
that the source code compile.  Or pass a test suite.   Whatever.

In the next version I'd like to have it really put the request into a
queue.  Right now it's more just like an automated (and authenticated)
star-merge wrapper.