how do I preview a patch file from bzr send, e.g.using diff --using meld

[Aaron Bentley]

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David Ingamells wrote:
> Suppose I have a branch in which I have made some updates and commits. I
> am now ready to generate a patch file using "bzr send" so that my
> changes can be merged back into the central repository.
> 
> How do I preview(e.g. using meld) what I will be sending?

diff --using meld -r submit:

> The
> patch file is described in the bzr documentation as being like a mini
> branch, but only bzr merge seems to recognise it.

pull also recognises it, but that's all at the moment.

> "bzr merge --preview"
> does not seem to have the "--using merge" option of diff, instead it
> seems to just be a cat of the first part of the patch file.

merge and diff each support a lot of options.  Combining them is
necessarily a tradeoff.  We opted to implement it on merge rather than
diff, but it's certainly a compromise.

> I am aware that I could apply the patch to a branch and diff on that,
> but given that it takes 45 minutes (yes! with bzr 1.2 too) to branch
> from one of our repositories, that is not an action to undertake lightly.

Are you using a shared repository?  Have you considered just making a
lightweight checkout, rather than a full branch?  What about just
applying it to your normal branch, and reverting if you don't like the
result?

> finally none of the diff facilities  report the details of "attributes
> changed" they only go so far as
> 
> === modified file '<file name>'* (properties changed)*
> 
> How can I see what properties have changed?

The only property that is tracked is the execute bit.

Aaron
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