[RFC] Trying to get something better that revno:N:branch to deal with remote revs

[Vincent LADEUIL]

>>>>> "Matthew" == Matthew D Fuller <fullermd at over-yonder.net> writes:

    Matthew> On Tue, Aug 15, 2006 at 05:24:59PM +0200 I heard the
    Matthew> voice of Matthieu Moy, and lo! it spake thus:
    >> "ghozzy _" <ghozzy at gmail.com> writes:
    >> 
    >> > bzr diff -r 3 -b http://remote/branch -r 4 -b
    >> http://somewhere/else
    >> 
    >> $ bzr diff -r 3 -r 4 -b ./branch1 -b ./branch2

    Matthew> FWIW, I find _both_ to be pretty unclear.  Args
    Matthew> associating with other args like that makes my eyes
    Matthew> cross.

and what about:

--old_rev (abbreviated as --or)
--old_branch (--ob)
--new_rev (--nr)
--new_branch (--nb)

bzr diff --or 3 --ob http://remote/branch --nr 4 --nb http://somewhere/else

bzr diff --or 3 --nr 4 --ob ./branch1 --nb ./branch

(old,new)  can also be  (from,to) but  when I  diff two  things I
always think about  what I will consider the  old version and the
new  version (whatever  they  really are,  it's  just that  +/-/!
prefixed lines interpretation is kinda hard-wired in my mind).

All in  all, I strongly agree  with ghozzy about  "trying to join
the strings and  thinking of a way how to  do it unambiguously is
not the way to go".

Another way of approaching this is  to think about it as a python
def, i.e. a mix between mandatory and optional keywords args:

def diff(old,new,old_rev=None,new_rev=None)

Then it can be used as:

bzr diff http://remote/branch http://somewhere/else --old_rev 3 --new_rev 4
bzr diff  http://remote/branch --old_rev 3 http://somewhere/else --new_rev 4 

or whatever variation the user is more comfortable with.

Does that un-cross your eyes ? :)

Just my 2 cents,

     Vincent