Re: RCS files with extension can no longer be read

[Thien-Thi Nguyen]

() Vincent Lefevre <address@hidden>
() Sun, 4 Jun 2017 02:40:32 +0200

   zira:~> rlog qavinfo,v

   rlog: qavinfo,v:6: missing `desc' keyword
   rlog aborted

   This file starts with:

   -----------------------------------------
   head    1.2;
   access;
   symbols;
   locks; strict;
   comment @# @;
   type    102     Perl;

As you might know, the RCS 5.8 (2011-08-30) NEWS mentions:

 - RCS file top-level grammar frozen.

   The RCS file top-level grammar is now frozen; RCS no longer
   supports pass-through operation of unrecognized key/data
   pairs (called "newphrases" in the RCS 5.7 rcsfile(5)
   manpage).

   To avoid painting ourselves into a corner, the grammar now
   includes a new key ‘integrity’ with @-string value, whose
   sub-grammar is not yet specified.  (We intend to keep
   checksums and other compacted redundancies in this field, for
   manipulation by the commands in a future RCS 5.x release.)
   For upward compatibility, the commands in this release do not
   change this field, although they silently read and write it
   (pass-through), if present.

I suppose the middle way would be to add back support for
"newphrases", in read-only mode (not passthrough).  However, i
am loathe to do that and would rather improve the documentation
(by writing it, first, and iterating, subsequently) on how to
batch-convert ,v files to embed their extra metainfo in the
‘integrity’ field.

-- 
Thien-Thi Nguyen -----------------------------------------------
 (defun responsep (query)
   (pcase (context query)
     (`(technical ,ml) (correctp ml))
     ...))                              748E A0E8 1CB8 A748 9BFA
--------------------------------------- 6CE4 6703 2224 4C80 7502

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