Christian Ohler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:

> Right, I'm familiar with revision _IDs_.  Sorry if this wasn't clear
> from my message.  The docstring refers to revision _specifiers_,
> though, which are a different beast, and bzr-specific.

I'm not describing revision _ID_. A revision ID is a unique
identifier. That is: one revision ID corresponds to one revision, and
one revision has only one ID. Depending on the system you use,
revision ID are semi-random string (bzr), hash-sum (git, monotone), or
namespace-based (GNU Arch).

What bzr calls a revision specifier (I don't know how other VCS call
this, but there is the same concept everywhere) is the way you talk
about the revision on the command line.

In git, for example, you can say [EMAIL PROTECTED] to specify a
revision, while the revision ID will be an hexadecimal string.

Now, the _way_ you define revision specifiers depends on the back-end.
I don't know at all about monotone, but I'm pretty sure you have a way
to say "last revision I commited yesterday", or "direct ancestor of
revision X". This is not a revision ID.

> Next time I get around to posting a patch, I'll revert the
> documentation changes in this hunk because the docstring is
> appropriate only for bzr, not for xmtn.

The examples are bzr-specific unfortunately, but the notion of
revision specifier is not.

>> For baz, for example (I don't care much about baz/tla right now, but
>> it has a strong historical influence on DVC), "status" mostly means
>> "short diff". So, you can compare you local tree with any other
>> revision.
>
> But does anyone actually use "status" like this?

As I said, it depends on the back-end.

> The usual model seems to be that "status" provides an overview of how
> the version control system sees the workspace, and what it's going to
> record when the user hits the commit button.  In this model, computing
> the status against an arbitrary revision is meaningless.

Sure. That's 99% of cases, but it doesn't harm to be able to do the 1%
remaining.

And once more, "depending on the back-end", "diff" might not show
changes in metadata (permissions, symlink change, ...). So, there are
cases where "status" contains informations that "diff" does not.

> None of the backends except tla seem to implement the AGAINST
> argument; this also indicates that it can't be needed much.  So,
> instead of having a note "not implemented in this backend" in every
> backend, let's just remove the argument.

I'm not opposed to removing it, but I don't think it's really an
improvement.

-- 
Matthieu

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