Plugable diffing algorithms?

[Aaron Bentley]

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Nicholas Allen wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> This is just more of an idea than anything (and clearly not a near term
> feature) but it would be great if bzr had pluggable and intelligent
> diffing/merging algorithms for various types of files.

Merge algorithms are reasonably pluggable already, since we support 3
out of the box.  We don't distinguish based on filetype, but I doubt it
would be hard to implement a merge algorithm that *did*.

Note that there's already a plugin that that lets you invoke arbitrary
merge algorithms: extmerge

http://erik.bagfors.nu/bzr-plugins/extmerge

Diffs are not currently as pluggable in the infrastructure, but there's
already a plugin to use whatever differ you like: difftools

http://mysite.verizon.net/sward.dev/projects/bzr_difftools

> As docbook files are often stored along
> with source code it would be great if bzr could diff and merge this
> content in a more intelligent way to avoid conflicts.

I agree, but I'm skeptical that an XML merge would do a good job.  I
think you'd need a DocBook-specific merge.

Aaron
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