Re: [gentoo-user] Difficulty with updating /etc/basb/bashrc

[Wol <antlists@youngman.org.uk>]

On 14/06/2024 18:39, Alan Mackenzie wrote:
>> Does etc-update or dispatch-conf not give you the option to selectively
>> update and/or to diff the file?

> In theory, yes.  In practice, dispatch-conf just offers a single
> ~130-line long hunk, which is useless for distinguishing wanted pieces of
> code from old superseded code.  As I say, what's missing is the old
> repository version, which would allow a diff3.

etc-update certainly, and I would be surprised if dispatch-conf didn't, 
does offer you a diff.

The (faulty) assumption here is that the user actually knows how to make 
use of a diff!

Certainly true for me, and quite likely for a sizeable minority, I 
predate both Linux and Windows by quite a large margin, and have never 
been part of the Unix eco-system. I use linux because it's better than 
Windows, I use gentoo because I want to learn, but I'm not comfortable 
with pretty much the entire development ecosystem including things like 
diff.

I so rarely use diff, that I find it simplest to run a diff (which tells 
me *what* has changed, then I open both old and new in kate, and 
manually investigate. It may be more work than using diff properly, but 
once I factor in the cost of working out how to use diff it's not worth 
it. It's doubly not worth it because I'll have forgotten all that hard 
work next time I need it!

Cheers,
Wol