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

[John Arbash Meinel]

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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?
|
| I can find nothing in the -r options that duplicates the comparisons
| that send must make. I know that I can just make the patch file and view
| it with an editor, but that is not the same as being able to use "diff
| --using meld".

'bzr diff --using meld -r submit:'

I think works for that.

If it doesn't then:

'bzr diff --using meld -r ancestor:http://other/branch'


|
| Second, suppose that I have received such a patch file and want to
| review the changes before I merge them into a central repository. Is
| there any way to examine a patch file using, e.g. diff --using meld. The
| patch file is described in the bzr documentation as being like a mini
| branch, but only bzr merge seems to recognise it. "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.

Actually, 'bzr merge --preview' applies the merge and then reports the diff. The
big difference is that if there are conflicts, etc, it will show them to you.
The patch will naturally not have any conflicts (it is a diff against the common
ancestor, ignoring changes in the target branches).


|
| 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 local shared repository? 45-minutes sounds like it is copying
the whole repository. 'bzr branch bzr.dev test_branch' takes about 6s on my machine.

| 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?
|
| Thanks in advance
| David.
|
|

John
=:->
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