Re: git-mergetool: wrap tools with 3 files only to use the BASE file instead of MERGED

From: David Aguilar <davvid@gmail.com>
Date: Aug 11, 2011, 09:37 UTC
Message-ID: <20110811093731.GB29507@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20110811084955.GA31233@elie.gateway.2wire.net>

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 03:49:55AM -0500, Jonathan Nieder wrote:

Show 11 quoted lines

> David Aguilar wrote:
> 
> > I think it sounds like a good thing for certain tools.
> > Sebastian mentioned it being fine in ecmerge and bc3.
> > xxdiff also lets you specify the output file, so it
> > probably wouldn't need it either, I think.
> 
> At the risk of taking away the itch for a good feature: meld joined
> the crowd of tools with -o to specify an output file in v1.5.0.
> 
>  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.meld.general/1270

What's the best way to use this and not break existing users?

meld v1.5.0 was released in December. We could parse `meld --version` and use the new --output flag on newer setups, leaving old setups alone. That's a lot of code to carry around but it's nicest to users.

Here's another idea.. mergetool--lib has vimdiff and vimdiff2. Maybe we can add a new meld3 tool that uses the --output flag? Users with older setups are unaffected. Documentation is changed to mention meld v1.5.0 and the meld3 tool. New users have to configure :-/

Alternatively, rename the existing meld to meld2 and let the new style call take over the current meld tool. Older setups with new git that use meld can adjust their config.

(and the final option: refactor mergetool--lib into separate
 files.  Yes, we should do that too! ;-))

what do you think?

-- 
					David