new status output

[Robey Pointer]

On 25 Oct 2005, at 0:33, James Blackwell wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 03:37:06PM -0700, Robey Pointer wrote:
>
>>>> Just a reminder because this always makes me panic. :)
>>>>
>>>> Please don't use svn's cryptic
>>>>    F Q  something.c
>>>>     Z   foo.c
>>>>    CY   bar.c
>>>> notation.  We can afford to spell out words describing the status.
>>>
>>
>> Yeah, when this came up before, the column format was proposed.  I
>> just wanted to reiterate it because the mailing list keeps  
>> growing. :)
>
> I hear your point, Robey. Getting a pile of alphabet soup is  
> frustrating.

[...]

> Would it be helpful to you if there were some sort of option to the
> various commands that show these flags to append a key explaining  
> what the
> flags mean?

In short, no. ;)

I think if you have to have a legend to explain the output, something  
has gone terribly wrong.  There ought to be some way to display the  
result without requiring extra deciphering.

> Imagine this though (I'm being a little sloppy here with whats  
> possible
> when, but the concept applies)
>
> Added Renamed Modified             somedirectory/subdir/anotherdir/ 
> file
>                        Conflicted  somedirectory/subdir/anotherdir/ 
> file2
>
> (one keeps different types of changes in different fields for easy  
> parsing
> by external third party programs)

I don't think that's true.  If I were writing a script, I'd find the  
odd spacing more difficult than just words.  But either way, the idea  
is more like:

renamed   somedirectory/subdir/file => somedirectory/subdir/file1
modified  somedirectory/subdir/file1
added     somedirectory/subdir/file2

There's no need to pile up all of a file's changes on one line.  In  
some cases (like rename), extra info is helpful anyway.

And now that I've said all that, I have to deflate by saying that I'm  
actually okay with the current system of changes files out by  
categories. :)

robey