[PATCH][RFC] Make log filename faster

[Wayne Davison]

On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 06:47:55PM +1100, Robert Collins wrote:
> So the question resolves around 'what does it mean to do "log
> FILENAME"' ?

To answer this, let me regress first into describing a feature I'd like
to see in bzr.

I probably represent an atypical opinion here, but what I am used to in
the CVS world is the ability to have a custom message for each checked
in file, and a summary of a group of changes in a ChangeLog file (I have
a custom check-in script that makes this easy to do).  I like this idiom
because it makes it easier to look back to see when certain kinds of
changes happened to a file that is not usually visible in the higher-
level summary details of the ChangeLog-style entries.  It would be cool
if bzr could support both these things in a manner that is even better
than what is possible in CVS:

First, in the standard "bzr log" output, I want to see a list of all the
filenames changed by each revision.  This would bring the default log
output up to the level of what I'm used to in a ChangeLog entry.  Sure,
I could manually enter all the filenames in my message, but it would be
better to have bzr do it, which also allows their display to be made
conditional.

Next, I would like the ability to associate a unique message with each
of the changed files.  To do this, define a syntax in the change-message
text that indicates the start of each file's change description.  For
instance, instead of this:

-------------- This line and the following will be ignored --------------

removed:
  one
added:
  two
modified:
  five
  four
  three

Have something like this:

-------------- removed --------------
=== one
-------------- added --------------
=== two
-------------- modified --------------
=== five
=== four
=== three

This would allow the user to optionally insert individualized messages
for each of the files affected by the revision after the file's ===
line.  Any file that was missing from the text or that had no
non-whitespace text would simply get an empty per-file message for that
revision.  These messages would not be displayed in the "bzr log" output
by default, so an option would need to be added to make them visible.

Now (finally) to answer your question, when the user specifies the
command "bzr log FILE", they see a list of the revisions that affected
that file, the revision's message, and any individualized message the
file may have for that revision.

..wayne..