From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linux-foundation.org>
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 05:47:24 GMT
Subject: Re: [PATCH 4/4] Add 'filter' attribute and external filter driver definition.
Message-ID: <alpine.LFD.0.98.0704212243080.9964@woody.linux-foundation.org>
In-Reply-To: <11771520591703-git-send-email-junkio@cox.net>



On Sat, 21 Apr 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
> The interface is similar to the custom low-level merge drivers.
> 
> First you configure your filter driver by defining 'filter.<name>.*'
> variables in the configuration.
> 
> 	filter.<name>.clean	filter command to run upon checkin
> 	filter.<name>.smudge	filter command to run upon checkout

I have to say, I'm obviously not a huge fan of playing games, but the 
diffs are very clean.

Are they actually *useful?* I dunno. I'm a bit nervous about what this 
means for any actual user of the feature, but I have to admit to being 
charmed by a clean implementation. 

I suspect that this gets some complaining off our back, but I *also* 
suspect that people will actually end up really screwing themselves with 
something like this and then blaming us and causing a huge pain down the 
line when we've supported this and people want "extended semantics" that 
are no longer clean.

But I'm not sure how valid an argument that really is. I do happen to 
believe in the "give them rope" philosophy. I think you can probably screw 
yourself royally with this, but hey, anybody who does that only has 
himself to blame ...

		Linus