[Lazarus] SVN user

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

waldo kitty wrote:
> On 12/29/2010 05:36, Peter E Williams wrote:
>>          >> use the normal diff format for your patch.
>>
>>     This is the step I don't understand.
>>
>>     How do I use the normal diff format for my patch?
>>
>> I am still waiting for an answer for how the diff command works.
> 
> have you never heard of a man page??  at your *nix command line, issue 
> "man diff" without the quotes... learn man, use man, love man ;)

Steady on chaps. Let's just assume that what he's asking is how to use 
diff when fixing a bug or making some other change in the context of 
this group of projects, i.e. FPC and Lazarus.

When I specifically asked this question just a couple of days ago I was 
told that the expected format was unified, not normal. Hence with the 
original file in a directory ./old:

diff -u old/testSinPi.pas testSinPi.pas >testSinPi.diff

where the diff file allows the changes to be incorporated by the developers.

Now I do agree that usage of man is a very basic skill if one hopes to 
do anything with unix (including Linux et al.). However anybody who 
wants to teach this point to a beginner really should be pointing out a 
few additional facts:

*  The output of man goes through a pager program. For a shell session 
(i.e. not using xman etc.) you exit from this using q

*  At the bottom of the manpage there is a SEE ALSO section which 
frequently cites other commands, each with their own manpage.

*  When a manpage is cited like readline(3), you access it using  man 3 
readline

*  You can get a list of related commands etc. using the apropos 
command, i.e. like  apropos diff  or  apropos diff |less

*  And finally, there are some commands, such as svn, which don't have 
good manpages. In that context the correct question is "how do I use svn 
to do X in the context of project Y", not "how does svn work".

Or at least that's how I'd have put it when I was being paid to teach or 
support.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]