Re: [PATCH v5 11/15] remote-testgit: make clear the 'done' feature

From: Felipe Contreras <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 12, 2012, 16:40 UTC
Message-ID: <CAMP44s1zWzaExNC9fOvfSQhxe6UmoDqOs39n_C3EN1JonBT0Dw@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <20121112154515.GB3546@elie.Belkin>

On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 4:45 PM, Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> wrote:

Show 13 quoted lines

> Max Horn wrote:
>
>> Aha, now I understand what this patch is about. So I would suggest
>> this alternate commit message:
>>
>>   remote-testgit: make it explicit clear that we use the 'done' feature
>>
>>   Previously we relied on passing '--use-done-feature ' to git
>>   fast-export, which is easy to miss when looking at this script.
>
> I'm not immediately sure I agree this is even a problem.  Is the point
> that other fast-import frontends do not have a --use-done-feature
> switch,

You mean other fast-exports.

And what other fast-exports? Most remote helpers don't use an external fast-export tool, and the only I know that used one is the one I wrote (and is now deprecated) that used bzr fast-export, and no, that one didn't support the done feature.

Most remote helpers would probably be doing the equivalent of fast-export themselves.

> so a typical remote helper has to do that work itself, and the
> sample "testgit" remote helper would be a more helpful example by
> doing that work itself?

Yes.

Show 5 quoted lines

> The idea behind --use-done-feature is that if fast-export exits early
> for some reason and its output is going to a pipe then at least the
> stream will be malformed, making it easier to catch errors.  So there
> is something to be weighed here: is it more important to illustrate
> how to make your fast-export tool's output prefix-free,

What fast-export tool?

This is a remote helper.

> or is it more
> important to illustrate how to work around a fast-export tool that
> doesn't support that feature?

Ditto.

If you want to launch a campaign of adding the 'done' feature to whatever fast-export tools are out there (that I'm not aware of), go ahead, but this is about remote helpers, most (all?) of which would not use a fast-export tool to achieve the export, but do it themselves.

Cheers.

-- 
Felipe Contreras