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Date:      Fri, 21 Mar 2003 11:09:25 -0500
From:      The Anarcat <anarcat@anarcat.ath.cx>
To:        "Brandon D. Valentine" <brandon@dvalentine.com>
Cc:        FreeBSD-Hackers <FreeBSD-Hackers@freebsd.org>, doubg@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: generalized mergemaster(8)
Message-ID:  <20030321160925.GA1174@lenny.anarcat.ath.cx>
In-Reply-To: <20030321041548.GY25577@geekpunk.net>
References:  <20030321041548.GY25577@geekpunk.net>

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What we need is a way to mark some package files as customizeable
files, or configuration files. The same way that some files are marked
DOC, but a bit better: it would need to be carried to the installed
package database.

This is again re-inventing the wheel since it is exactly how Debian's
apt-get system deals with configuration files. /etc files are part of
a package that, when upgraded, are checked for modification and the
user is offered the choice similar to mergemaster to install, merge,
or just delete.

We still need to write a generic tool to diff and merge. It's not so
hard to write. It would basically be a stripped down version of
mergemaster -s. I think such a tool would be really useful.

A.

On Thu Mar 20, 2003 at 10:15:48PM -0600, Brandon D. Valentine wrote:
> I have encountered a situation in which it would be extremely handy to
> have a generalized version of mergemaster(8) which is less specific to
> the task of merging /etc.  I need to recursively merge two directories
> of source files in which I wish to preserve some original files, install
> some replacement files outright, and only actually go to the trouble of
> sdiff(1)ing those files that from the preview udiff look like they are
> need of a merge.  Has anyone already done the work of generalizing
> mergemaster to this more general task?  And if not, is there interest in
> this?  If nobody has done it I'm probably about to.  My inclination is
> to extend the existing mergemaster script to support this general
> functionality while maintaining support for the specific case of an /etc
> merge.  mergemaster(8) is already fairly applicable to this task but it
> currently makes some assumptions about what your $Id$ looks like and
> that you will in fact be running make(1) somewhere to generate your
> temproot.
>=20
> Thoughts?
>=20
> Brandon D. Valentine
> --=20
> brandon@dvalentine.com                                 http://www.geekpun=
k.net
> Pseudo-Random Googlism:  valentine is her husband
>=20
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
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>=20



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