Re: how to "reload" a file for editing?

On Sun, Oct 31, 2004 at 11:42:55AM -0500, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> On Sun, 31 Oct 2004, Larry McVoy wrote:
> 
> > Have you read `bk bin`/bk.script?  There are a zillion little aliases
> > in there and "bk reedit" is one of them.
> 
> ah, quite right, but that brings up a related issue, and that's why
> some of those aliases are documented in "bk helptool" and some aren't.

Two reasons, neither of them that great.

We tend to add things like this to bk.script and see if they are a good idea
by whether or not they get used.  We either use them or we don't, we tell
people about them, they use them or they don't, and over time they become
part of BK or they get dropped.

The other reason is that there are a zillion BK interfaces already and 
people are intimidated by the list.  Making that list bigger seems like
not such a good idea.

> taking this a bit further, it's clear that the _chmod() function is
> actually implemented in terms of "bk admin -m", even though the
> "admin" entry in "bk helptool" doesn't mention a "-m" option.
> curious.

That's because admin is way too complex an interface and we don't want
people using it unless they have to do so.  We are trying to move towards
more sane interfaces than admin (which is a holdover from SCCS command
line compat).

> and while perusing bk.script, i glanced at the code for _repair(), and
> noticed calls to "bk park" and "bk idcache", neither of which are
> documented in "bk helptool" or defined as functions in bk.script.

bk park is a thorn in my side, it's not documented because it doesn't
work right.  Don't use it until we document it because I guarentee you
the semantics are going to change.

bk idcache is something which bk uses internally, it is a sort of TLB
for pathnames.  It has no use for end users.

> so, sometimes, even reading the source doesn't quite answer all the
> questions.  just an observation.

Yup.  But it's still worthwhile to keep your eye on bk.script, there are
neat little things in there.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy                lm at bitmover.com           http://www.bitkeeper.com
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