Dotted revisions numbers and range of revisions (was: Re: [ANNOUNCE] bzr-0.12 released)

[Jari Aalto]

Martin Pool <mbp at canonical.com> writes:

> On  2 Nov 2006, Alexander Belchenko <bialix at ukr.net> wrote:
> > Matthew D. Fuller ??????????:
> > >On Mon, Oct 30, 2006 at 12:15:30PM -0600 I heard the voice of
> > >John Arbash Meinel, and lo! it spake thus:
> > >>    * revisions can now be specified using dotted-decimal revision
> > >>    numbers.  For instance, ``bzr diff -r 1.2.1..1.2.3. (Robert
> > >>    Collins)
> > 
> > After looking at command line above I wonder if bzr could support more
> > readable revisions range specifier, like this:
> > 
> > bzr diff -r 1.2.1 .. 1.2.3
> >                  ^  ^
> >                  spaces here?
> > 
> > Because when it written together without spaces it's hard to read and
> > understand when one dotted number ends and other starts.
> 
> I agree it's hard to read.
> 
> That specific syntax is problematic though because '..' also looks like
> a directory name, and one might reasonably write.
> 
>  bzr diff -r 13123 ..
> 
> Perhaps we should allow
> 
>  bzr diff -r 1.2.1 -r 1.2.3


What if an alternate character could be used. Perhaps two dashes that
are easily typed and visible enough?

        bzr diff -r 1.2.1--1.2.3

Jari