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Bug 5723 - Provide graphical diff option for etc-update
Summary: Provide graphical diff option for etc-update
Status: VERIFIED REMIND
Alias: None
Product: Gentoo Linux
Classification: Unclassified
Component: [OLD] Unspecified (show other bugs)
Hardware: x86 Linux
: High enhancement (vote)
Assignee: Karl Trygve Kalleberg (RETIRED)
URL:
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2002-07-29 09:14 UTC by Keith Edmunds
Modified: 2004-11-24 08:23 UTC (History)
1 user (show)

See Also:
Package list:
Runtime testing required: ---


Attachments
vimdiff.patch (vimdiff.patch,581 bytes, patch)
2002-10-28 10:05 UTC, CJ Kucera
Details | Diff

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Description Keith Edmunds 2002-07-29 09:14:40 UTC
etc-update is a very necessary tool. However, it could be greatly enhanced by
allowing the user to specify which 'diff' program is used, thus allowing the
selection of a graphical tool if preferred. Many users would find that much
easier to work with than the raw output of 'diff'.

Keith
Comment 1 Troy Dack 2002-07-30 20:17:41 UTC
IIRC you can select the diff tool to use, there are config options for etc-update.

I'm not on my gentoo box at the moment so I can't tell you where they are, but
I'm leaning towards /etc/rc.conf as a possibility.

I do know that you can specify vim-diff instead of regular diff.

Are there any already made graphical diff tools?  If so you may be able to plug
them into etc-update in a similar way to how vim-diff is used.

You would also need to make sure that the user had access to the X server
(because you don't log in to X as root, do you?)
Comment 2 Karl Trygve Kalleberg (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2002-08-04 16:16:39 UTC
If you attach a list of suggested graphical diff tools we have ebuilds for, 
I'll update etc-update's config file to include them as (commented) options, 
and make a notice in pkg_postinst() about them.

Thus, the user can make his selection after he's installed gentoolkit.
Comment 3 Karl Trygve Kalleberg (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2002-08-26 09:42:16 UTC
Since this is very low-priority, I'm marking this one as "REMIND"; please reopen
once you got some more.
Comment 4 CJ Kucera 2002-10-28 10:05:48 UTC
Created attachment 5134 [details, diff]
vimdiff.patch

In case anyone's interested, I've patched my etc-update to have an option to
edit the files with vimdiff.  This works out really well for me.  I've attached
the patch (it's quite simple).
Comment 5 Donnie Berkholz (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2003-07-01 13:27:00 UTC
Colordiff is really nice for seeing initial changes. It doesn't do color for side-by-side though, so no pretty merging. Here's a little diff of etc-update.conf to tell people it's an option. We have an ebuild for xxdiff and I've been trying to make it work, but it's fairly ugly and I'm not too sure on its ability to merge to a prespecified filename. Other GUI diffs/frontends besides xxdiff include gtkdiff and kdiff3.

$ diff -urN etc-update.conf.orig etc-update.conf
--- etc-update.conf.orig        2003-07-01 15:17:14.000000000 -0500
+++ etc-update.conf     2003-07-01 15:23:18.000000000 -0500
@@ -21,11 +21,14 @@
 pager="less"
 #pager=""
 
+# colordiff is a nice alternative for diff_command. emerge -s colordiff.
 # vim-users: you CAN use vimdiff for diff_command. (see NOTE_1)
 diff_command="diff -uN %file1 %file2"
 using_editor=0
 #diff_command="vim -d %file1 %file2"
 #using_editor=1
+#diff_command="colordiff -uN %file1 %file2"
+#using_editor=0
 
 # vim-users: don't use vimdiff for merging (see NOTE_1)
 merge_command="sdiff -s -o %merged %orig %new"
Comment 6 Chris Rebert 2004-11-16 23:00:27 UTC
Additionally, there's meld for Gnome.
Comment 7 Ryan Hill (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2004-11-17 14:15:14 UTC
unfortunately the current meld ebuild (meld-0.9.0-r1) is broken.  see bug 69824.  i've also attempted to build from source tarball of meld-0.9.0, and 0.9.4.1 from http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/gnome/sources/meld/0.9/ and both compiled and installed without warning or error but segfaulted at runtime.
Comment 8 Karl Trygve Kalleberg (RETIRED) gentoo-dev 2004-11-24 08:23:32 UTC
I don't see it as realistic that we'll get to this anytime soon. etc-upcate has been superceded by a lot of other attempts at solving the same problem. I suggest extending either of those.