Re: Proposal to improve package configuration upgrades
On Wed, Feb 25 2009, Dominique Dumont wrote:
> Harald Braumann <harry@unheit.net> writes:
>
>> I don't really know Config::Model. But the main problem I have with the
>> current system is, that I only see diffs between the currently
>> installed version and the new package version.
>
> With ucf, you see a diff between current file (i.e. installed version
> with your modifications) and the new package version.
>
>> No what I really would like to see is the diff between the last version
>> I've merged and the new package version.
>
> I fail to see the differences (no pun intented) between "the last
> version I've merged" and the current file ...
Well. If the maintainer so desires, ucf does have this to say:
,----[ Manual page ucf(1) ]
| --three-way
| This turns on the option, during installation, for the user to
| be offered a chance to see a merge of the changes between old
| maintainer version and the new maintainer version into the
| local copy of the configuration file. If the user likes what
| they see, they can ask to have these changes merged in. This
| allows one to get new upstream changes merged in even while
| retaining local modifications to the configuration file. This
| is accomplished by taking the configuration file and stashing
| it in a cache area during registration, and using diff3 during
| the install (the stashed file name is a munged version of the
| full path of the configuration file to avoid name space
| clashes). Note This option appeared in Version 0.8 of ucf,
| which was the first version released into unstable and
| ultimately Sarge. The version of ucf in woody does not contain
| this option.
`----
Seems like this is what is desired; however, the reason this is
not on by default is that some configuration files can be huge, and ucf
did not want to stash away _all_ the configuration files handled by it
into /var. The exectation was that most developers with smallish
configuration files would use --three-way, but that expectation was
unfounded.
manoj
--
In the stairway of life, you'd best take the elevator.
Manoj Srivastava <srivasta@debian.org> <http://www.debian.org/~srivasta/>
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