[PATCH 1 of 1] url: added support for scp/rsync style URLs for ssh

Thomas Arendsen Hein thomas at intevation.de
Thu Apr 21 14:32:43 CDT 2011


* Matt Mackall <mpm at selenic.com> [20110419 18:06]:
> - rcp/scp syntax was -always- unfortunate because it was too easy to run
> afoul of (everyone who's used it regularly has had to delete countless
> files named user at host because they hit return before the colon)

Indeed, this is a very good argument and I did not think about it
yet. I had to delete such a file some hours before you wrote your
mail and today I noticed three such files in a co-worker's (not
Sascha's :)) home directory and a locate on our file server revealed
a few more of those.

Luckily this will only happen with single files, but cloning a
repository to the wrong target might be dangerous for your quota.

> - there's no way to specify an alternate port in this syntax.

And no other ssh options, but there is .ssh/config or the -e option.

> - Mercurial is not a one-protocol tool and never has been and it was
> invented in an era when everyone knew how to work with a multi-protocol
> tool: URLs.

But Mercurial is a tool for humans and humans don't want to type
stuff that the computer already should know.

> - the two syntaxes are obviously lexically incompatible and adding
> further heuristic hacks to our nice new _url_ class to support them
> isn't terribly pretty

The nice new url class already knows about other things (e.g. paths
and bundle:)

> I've been using rcp and friends since.. the 80s and I can't say I've
> ever thought "hmmm, this would be better if it took rcp paths".

But _many_ people do.

With your first argument you convinced me (sorry, Sascha et al) that
I do not want this in core, but I think an extension would fit the
bill very nicely. The schemes extension already does something
similar.

Regards,
Thomas

P.S.: Completely unrelated: Your mail client had a strange Cc: header:
      Cc: Arendsen Hein <thomas at intevation.de>, Thomas at waste.org, ...

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