Re: Something like "darcs record" / "hg record" == Select changes to commit.

[Daniel Carrera]

On Thursday, June 07, 2012 at 3:06 AM, Stephen J. Turnbull <stephen at xemacs.org> wrote:

>Daniel Carrera writes:
>
> > I would add that I have experimented with "shelve" and some times
> > it doesn't let me select individual hunks in a file if they are
> > very close.
>
> That sounds like a bug, unless by "very close" you mean "in the same
> line".  At that level, I think you just need to bite the bullet.

Oh, not at all. I meant a few lines apart. Here is a practical example:

-------------// Example Start //-------------------
daniel ~/Other/tmp % cat test.dat 
cat
mouse
hamster
rat
gebril
daniel ~/Other/tmp % pico test.dat 
daniel ~/Other/tmp % cat test.dat 
cat
koala
mouse
hamster
rat
wolf
gebril
daniel ~/Other/tmp % bzr diff
=== modified file 'test.dat'
--- test.dat	2012-06-02 12:40:19 +0000
+++ test.dat	2012-06-07 01:47:24 +0000
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 cat
+koala
 mouse
 hamster
 rat
+wolf
 gebril

daniel ~/Other/tmp % bzr shelve
--- test.dat	2012-06-02 12:40:19 +0000
+++ test.dat	2012-06-07 01:47:24 +0000
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
 cat
+koala
 mouse
 hamster
 rat
+wolf
 gebril
Shelve? [yNfq?]
-------------// Example End //-------------------

You see... unless I'm just confused about how shelf works, "koala" and "wolf" are together even though they are three lines apart.

I certainly don't expect a VCS to select hunks smaller than a line. Even if the feature was available, I wouldn't use it.


> > So the only way to commit the change I want (e.g. fixing a typo in
> > a comment) is to undo some of the work I've done in nearby lines,
> > then commit, and then re-add my changes... That feels like
> > something my VCS would ideally take care of...
>
> I disagree.  I think your editor should take care of it.  The parts
> that need human judgment here are disentangling textual changes,
> that's what editors are good at.  So I think you want to stay in your
> editor at this point.  The editor's role would be to save the file, 
> ask the VCS to shelve the current changes, and refresh the buffer.
> You fix the typo, then the editor saves, asks the VCS to commit the
> small change and then unwind the shelf, and refreshes the buffer
> (which is probably in conflict now).

Out of curiosity, what editor do you use? Do you have an editor that can do this?

Cheers,
Daniel.