From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Stefan Monnier" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: [F.J.Wright@qmul.ac.uk: rcs2log] Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:22:13 -0500 Sender: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org Message-ID: <200210291922.g9TJMD918275@rum.cs.yale.edu> References: <20021029160458.A0AA.LEKTU@terra.es> <200210291519.g9TFJKS16350@rum.cs.yale.edu> <20021029163545.A0B0.LEKTU@terra.es> <200210291543.g9TFhiF16549@rum.cs.yale.edu> <00dc01c27f6d$9932eed0$3a50258a@maths.qmul.ac.uk> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035919496 12012 80.91.224.249 (29 Oct 2002 19:24:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:24:56 +0000 (UTC) Cc: "Stefan Monnier" , "Juanma Barranquero" , "Eli Zaretskii" , emacs-devel@gnu.org Return-path: Original-Received: from quimby.gnus.org ([80.91.224.244]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 186byv-00037R-00 for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 20:24:53 +0100 Original-Received: from monty-python.gnu.org ([199.232.76.173]) by quimby.gnus.org with esmtp (Exim 3.12 #1 (Debian)) id 186c3f-0004iM-00 for ; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 20:29:47 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 186bxa-0001zC-00; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:23:31 -0500 Original-Received: from list by monty-python.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 186bwW-00010u-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:22:24 -0500 Original-Received: from mail by monty-python.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.10) id 186bwS-0000wL-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:22:23 -0500 Original-Received: from rum.cs.yale.edu ([128.36.229.169]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.10) id 186bwS-0000ux-00 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:22:20 -0500 Original-Received: (from monnier@localhost) by rum.cs.yale.edu (8.11.6/8.11.6) id g9TJMD918275; Tue, 29 Oct 2002 14:22:13 -0500 X-Mailer: exmh version 2.4 06/23/2000 with nmh-1.0.4 Original-To: "Dr Francis J. Wright" Errors-To: emacs-devel-admin@gnu.org X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: Emacs development discussions. List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:8926 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:8926 > I see the way that vc uses rcs2log as being the same as the way that hexl > mode uses an external helper program. There's a subtle difference: hexl-mode is completely unusable without the `hexl' program, whereas VC is fully functional even without rcs2log. I.e. support for rcs2log is an added feature to VC, but it is not the main purpose of VC. > One is Eli's suggestion, namely a more sophisticated replacement for my > rcs2log.bat file that deduces the correct search path to use for sort. > Clearly this should not use any non-standard Windows technology other than > what is necessary anyway to run rcs2log. (So, for example, a perl script > would not be not a good solution, although using Windows Script Host might > be.) A good solution would be to pull the appropriate Cygwin path out of > the Registry, but I'm not sure how feasible that is. > > The other is to modify vc.el to allow the user to specify a directory > containing the correct sort program and to prepend that to exec-path before > trying to execute rcs2log. This could be made to happen only on Windows > platforms. I think modifying vc.el is completely wrong. Right now vc.el doesn't know anything about rcs2log apart from some arguments it can take and what things it might output. It doesn't know it's written in `sh', it doesn't know it uses `sort'. And indeed, rcs2log might be rewritten in Perl some day and stop using `sort' and `sh'. Also rcs2log is actually not particularly linked to Emacs (which is why it's also distributed along with CVS), so any fix for w32 should allow it to work correctly even when it's not run from Emacs. > I'll think about these two options and see whether I can produce a solution > that people find more acceptable than my original rcs2log.bat solution. I think an rcs2log.bat wrapper is the right approach, I believe. I actually haven't seen any disagreement with it. The only problem mentioned so far has to do with `sort' which is basically unrelated to the problem at hand (except for the fact that it is related to the same script and to the same platform). Stefan