On 04/20/06 18:34, Paul Eggert wrote: > "Jonathan Noack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >> The purpose of this option is not to present output for human >> consumption; rather, it is to allow scripts/programs to parse the >> output. > > But you also mentioned that you wanted to be able to put rlog output into > rlog entries, which means you need a general quoting mechanism.
I mentioned that others might do so; however, they should not be using this option. Even if they do, the NUL byte won't be visible on the console/terminal and wouldn't get copied/pasted. They would have to redirect the rlog output to a file or directly into the commit log for the NUL byte to make it. > Let's put it another way. There is nothing in the current spec that > prevents NUL bytes from being in rlog output. The current RCS > commands let you put NUL bytes there. So, merely outputting a single > NUL byte at the end of each log entry will not suffice, in general, to > let programs disambiguate the output. You need a more-general way > whereby rlog can represent arbitary data in the rlog entry, while > still being parsable. If you read the prototype patch you'll note that I'm APPENDING the NUL byte to the existing separators, not replacing them with a NUL byte. The separators are therefore on a line by themselves with lots of dashes/equal signs followed by a NUL byte and ending in a newline. It is highly improbable this sequence would randomly appear in a commit log. I described above what it would take for a user to unwittingly include it. I'm looking for a workable solution. Given that rlog's output may be pasted into a commit log by well-meaning but misguided people, we need an option for different separators. I thought a NUL byte would be a good choice because it provides some protection even if people use the proposed option when they shouldn't. This was the best solution I found, but I welcome alternatives... :) -Jonathan _______________________________________________ help-rcs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-rcs
