removing stale files

[Paul Richards]

On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 01:16:40PM +0930, Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote:

> The problem with mergemaster in its current form is that it leaves too
> much work to the user.  I've just installed a 5.0 CD-ROM, upgraded to
> latest -CURRENT, and run mergemaster -ia.  It left me with 268 files
> to merge by hand.
> 
> A big part of the problem is exactly the fact that mergemaster can't
> know whether it can change files like /etc/defaults/rc.conf.  That's
> because we have no official policy about it.  Sure, at the top it
> says:

Brian suggested something to me a while ago about improving mergemaster.

Why not use the cvs id to diff the file against that revision. If it's
the same then just update it, because it hasn't been changed, otherwise
fall back to the usual method.

Ok, you need a cvs repo to do this, but it's an extra feature for people
who have one, which is probably a large percentage of the users who
regularly do updates.

It could be done in such a way that a remote repo is used for this. The
src tree must have been updated from somewhere in the first place.

There are some issues with making this universal, but even if it's
initially only available to those with local repos it would still be a
big improvement.


-- 
Tis a wise thing to know what is wanted, wiser still to know when
it has been achieved and wisest of all to know when it is unachievable
for then striving is folly. [Magician]