Re: [RFC PATCH] userdiff: ship built-in driver config file

From: LI, BO XUAN <liboxuan@connect.hku.hk>
Date: Jun 19, 2019, 15:32 UTC
Message-ID: <CALM0=-=4b4j1brRN=Jnq4N+f+_vJXrL-JBAOxaLw0FgugNqX5w@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20190619035857.GB515@sigill.intra.peff.net>

On Wed, Jun 19, 2019 at 11:58 AM Jeff King <peff@peff.net> wrote:

Show 17 quoted lines

>
> While having separate lines that get joined here does make the result
> easier to read, I think it creates some confusion. diff.*.xfuncname in a
> regular config file _doesn't_ behave this way (it's the usual
> last-one-wins, so we expect a single string). You've handled this
> specially in your code to read this file, but it's confusing because
> this test otherwise looks exactly like a config file. And thus somebody
> might be tempted to copy it to their config file and modify it, but it
> would not do what they expected.
>
> I don't recall how well our config parser copes with embedded newlines
> in values.  I.e., if it would be possible to write:
>
>   [diff "foo"]
>   xfuncname = "the pattern starts here...
>   and continues through newlines!"
>

If I recall correctly, the above version wouldn't work, but the following version would:

[diff "foo"]
    xfuncname = "The pattern starts here..."
"and continues here! But the indentation looks ugly,"
"and we lose the ability to add comments inline (within pattern)"

Actually, at the very beginning, I was imaging some syntax like this:

[diff "foo"]
    xfuncname = "The pattern starts here..."
    ; using '+=' will continue the pattern above
    xfuncname += "and continues here!"
    ; a '=' symbol will start a new pattern
    xfuncname = "This is another pattern.."
    xfuncname += "and remember, last one always wins"

The existing config parser does not support "+=" though, which is a nice feature to have in my opinion. Maybe there is a reason?

By the way, thanks for all the reviews! Especially when I found more lines of reviews than lines of my code.

Best regards, Boxuan