mq and named queues - and qseries --edit. Was: Re: mercurial at 11238: 10 new changesets (3 stable)

[Martin Geisler]

Kevin Bullock <kbullock+mercurial at ringworld.org> writes:

> On 4 Jun 2010, at 1:58 PM, Martin Geisler wrote:
>
>> The idea is that instead of editing the series file manually, I would do
>> something like
>> 
>>  hg qpush --grab foo
>> 
>> to apply patch 'foo' next, thereby editing the series file on the fly.
>> This would basically turn the unapplied patches into a *set* instead of
>> a *list*, allowing you to grab any unapplied patch and apply it.
>> 
>> I would even consider making --grab the default when there is a named
>> patch on the command line. That way
>> 
>>  hg qpush     <-- apply next patch in series
>>  hg qpush foo <-- make 'foo' next and apply it
>> 
>> You would then use
>> 
>>  hg qgoto foo
>> 
>> to get the old behavior of
>> 
>>  hg qpush foo
>
> FWIW I agree with Mads that this would be dangerous.

Yes, reordering patches are of course dangerous.

> I like the idea of having a --grab option, but not making that
> behavior the default.

No, that would probably be too much, not to mention totally backwards
incompatible.

> Here's why I like the option: the series file, although it's in
> plaintext, is essentially serialized state of the patch queue. Letting
> the software manipulate it that knows about its format seems
> preferable in the normal case, even if manual hacking ability is nice
> to have.

Right.

-- 
Martin Geisler

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