Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: How to support arch on systems with a small PATH_MAX

[James Blackwell]

> address@hidden (James Blackwell) writes:
>>> Sounds like a pre-commit hook to me (or at most, perhaps some sort of
>>> rules-file stored in {arch}).
>>
>> I figure a pre-commit hook won't be aware which files are adds and
>> renames without being pretty smart.
>

Miles Bader wrote:
> If you've got a changeset, it's completely trivial to find out; I don't
> know if pre-commit hooks get a pre-prepared changeset, but it's easy
> enough to _make_ one using `tla changes' (you don't really need the
> changeset itself, the output of the `changes' command would be enough).

I really do think that, when adding/moving files, arch should by default 
check for invalid filenames on all filesystems. For those that don't
want this check, they should be able to trivially disable the check.

I'm of the opinion that the majority of our users (current and
potential) are going to be interested in knowing whether or not a commit
to an archive is going to render that archive unusable on certain
platforms. For those few that don't care, a simple touch
=meta-info/=nonportable-ok does the trick.

Free software doesn't just exist in the *nix world these days. Now, you
can find free software encroaching on non *nix platforms. As a group,
the free software community should want to -encourage- this behavior, as
it gives a wider group of people a taste of what free software is like. 
There is an *enormous* number of free software projects that are *very*
interested in portability. 

hooks (and more so the pre-commit hook) are not generally used by novice
arch users. This means, in order to provide what should be default
behavior, we would have to install the precommit hook on the user's
behalf. Now, we're getting into figuring out what shells are on the
user's machine. 

I'm pretty sure that the wants-to-be-portable community (which includes
projects like bind, sendmail, xfree86, vnc, openssh, inn) community is a bit
larger than the I-couldn't-care-less-if-I-locked-out-the-non-*nix community.

This is one of the few times when the common case is obvious, and as
such, we want that default behavior built into arch, not kept out of
arch where it is no longer the default behavior.

-- 
James Blackwell          Try something fun: For the next 24 hours, give
Smile more!              each person you meet a compliment!

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