Re: [Quilt-dev] handling empty new files

[Joe Green]

Jean Delvare wrote:

> On 2005-08-10, Jerome Lacoste wrote:
>  
>
> > I am having problems to generate a patch with a new empty file.
> >    
Wow, great timing.  I've just been updating the version of quilt we use 
locally, and I have a patch for this that I was planning to propose to 
add to quilt.

> As you found out, this is caused by a limitations in diff (or more
> precisely, in the diff output format, which is even worse). As long as
> quilt uses diff to generate patch files, there's anything we can do.
>  
Actually, there is.  The problem is that quilt forces the "-E" option 
when it invokes patch.  If this option is not specified, patch can 
determine the difference between an empty file and a removed or added 
file by looking at the patch file names (/dev/null "to" file means 
removed, on "from" file means added) or the file timestamps (epoch means 
removed/added).

The only downside I can see is that some people may not be generating 
patches with the correct headers (e.g., not using "-N" option to diff).  
quilt generates correct headers on the patches it creates or refreshes.

I would suggest removing the "-E" on patch application, and letting 
users add it to "QUILT_PATCH_OPTS" if they wish to.

I've attached a sample patch to remove this option.  Warning:  I've just 
updated this to 0.42; I haven't tested it yet, but it's fairly 
straightforward.

--
Joe Green <address@hidden>
MontaVista Software, Inc.