New submission from Eric Kow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:

Scenario
--------
darcs init
touch a
darcs record -am 'foo' a
darcs send

Error
-----
darcs failed:  Not a repository:  (/_darcs/inventory: openBinaryFile: does not
exist (No such file or directory))

Context
-------
I was trying to explain to a new user how to send me patches on a repository he
had created, but due to a misunderstanding (my crappy explanation), he tried to
use darcs send as a sort of darcs-put-over-email.  That is, the user has no
remote repository to send to, but not knowing what darcs send does, he expected
 to be prompted with an email address.  Instead, he gets the error message 
above.

Analysis
--------
There are two issues here:

1. (bug) Darcs confuses the lack of remote repository with the remote repository
living at '/'.

2. Darcs fails to signal to the user that 'send' requires a remote repository

For what it's worth, 'push' manages to do this, but the way it accomplishes it
is rather unfriendly.  It spits out 'darcs failed:  Missing argument: 
[REPOSITORY]' and furthermore, the entirety of push --help.  Not helpful!  It
means that the error message is drowned in text and the user doesn't even see
why things go wrong.  Also, it might mislead the user to thinking that you
always need to supply a repository to push, when in fact, you only need to do so
the first time.

----------
messages: 1796
nosy: EricKow, beschmi, droundy, tommy
priority: bug
status: unread
title: send => not a repository: /
topic: ProbablyEasy

__________________________________
Darcs bug tracker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<http://bugs.darcs.net/issue495>
__________________________________
_______________________________________________
darcs-devel mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.osuosl.org/mailman/listinfo/darcs-devel

Reply via email to