Re: Seeking an idiot's guide to etcupdate/mergemaster

etcupdate
=========

On 06/11/2022 17:35, George Michaelson wrote:

> I am probably alone in this

You're not alone.


> … I find the … <<<<</>>>>>
> markers in the update diffs intensely confusing.

diff3 bracketing.

<<<<<<< is where a conflict begins,
 >>>>>>> is where it ends.

Beyond that, it was difficult for me to find an explanation that's simple.

In the midst of a long page from twenty-nine years ago:

<http://www.hpcc.ecs.soton.ac.uk/hpci/tools/cvs/html/diff.html#SEC53> 
begins with simplicity.

<https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/a7212e5721baeb31eb104c4829cdf20c58969463> 
(2016-08-05) puts diff3(1) in the context of etcupdate(8).

<https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=diff3&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD#SEE_ALSO> 
suggests a command that has no effect:

     info diff3

----

For people who prefer complexity, from the outset, when attempting to 
grasp (or remember) something that's new, or complex:

<https://blog.jcoglan.com/2017/05/08/merging-with-diff3/>

– the team includes Alice and Bob developing a recipe book with a soup 
with six ingredients, one of which is a common allergen – celery, 
garlic, onions, salmon, tomatoes, wine – things get chunky when both 
Alice and Bob differ from the original and neither Adam nor Eve are 
emitted; adapted from Khanna, S., Kunal, K., Pierce, B.C. (2007). A 
Formal Investigation of Diff3. In: Arvind, V., Prasad, S. (eds) FSTTCS 
2007: Foundations of Software Technology and Theoretical Computer 
Science. FSTTCS 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4855. 
Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77050-3_40

:-)


> Given many merges are
> large blocks, its almost impossible to keep context flitting about in
> vi …

<https://reviews.freebsd.org/D36786>


> TL;DR the merge process for FreeBSD-update and like, can be intensely
> confusing when you try to reconcile what it tells you about /etc/
>
> -G
>
> On Sun, Nov 6, 2022 at 12:07 PM Tomoaki AOKI <junchoon@dec.sakura.ne.jp> wrote:
> …