[RFC] UI for logging directories and multiple files

[John Arbash Meinel]

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Ian Clatworthy wrote:
> Real soon now, I hope to put a patch up extending log
> to support logging of directories and multiple files.
> I have the core of this working, though getting fast
> performance on large repositories will take a bit longer.
> (The latter is important given these issues have been
> highlighted by the Emacs community as features they
> want/need before moving to Bazaar.)
> 
> This email though is about the UI and how *I* expect
> the options to work together. If others agree or think
> differently, I'd like to hear about it please.
> 
> For the record, here's how 'bzr log FILE' behaves now:
> 
> 1. with no options, just the revision info is shown
> 2. with -v, the *full* delta is shown as well
> 3. with -p, the diff *just* for that file is shown.
> 
> My feeling is that the -v behaviour ought to be changed.
> If someone asks for file/directory filtering, the
> status output should be filtered accordingly. FWIW,
> that's how status works:
> 
> * "bzr status -cX" shows all changed files in revision X
> * "bzr status -cX foo" shows just what happened to foo.
> 

I believe the idea is that that format is not particularly interesting
for 'bzr log -v FILE'. Specifically, you *know* that file was changed,
which is why the revision is being shown. For "bzr status" you *don't*
know if that file was changed or not in a given revision.

Also, if you remove the other entries, there is no easy way to say "show
me what else changed when this file changed".

> When we support multiple files and directories in log, I
> think filtered -v and -p output will be most desirable.
> After all, for a single file, you know what file changed
> (because you're only looking for one of them) and 95% of
> the time, the action will be 'modified'. In comparison,
> for a directory or several files, showing what changed
> - without the noise of every other change in each
> revision - will become more important.

Here I agree a bit more, and perhaps it makes sense to be more
consistent between the single FILE case and the multiple FILE cases.
Though we still need a "and show me the rest" flag.

> 
> Some questions:
> 
> 1. Is there a genuine need for occasionally seeing the full
> delta and/or full diff when logging paths? If so, what UI
> would you like for this?
> 
> 2. When logging paths, is there a desire to see the delta
>    implicitly? I considered this but ended up thinking that
>    just showing the revisions was sufficient and adding -v
>    to see that additional info was no big deal. In fact,
>    an implicit delta seems unnecessary noise when using
>    "bzr log -p paths" so that was another reason for
>    sticking with only showing the delta is it was
>    explicitly asked for. Does anyone think otherwise?
> 
> Ian C.
> 
> 

Personally, I would like to only show the delta when requested, if only
because I normally don't want to see the delta. I can always alias it
off, as long as a knob is provided, though, as I already use an alias
for log=log --short -r-10..-1 --forward.

John
=:->
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