stow/NEWS

News file for Stow.

*  Changes in version 2.0.1:
** Defer operations until all potential conflicts have been assessed.

We do this by traversing the installation image(s) and recording the
actions that need to be performed.  Redundant actions are factored out,
e.g., we don't want to create a link that we will later remove in order to
create a directory.  Benefits of this approach

    1. Get to see _all_ the conflicts that are blocking an installation: 
       you don't have to deal with them one at a time.
    2. No operations are be performed if _any_ conflicts are detected:
       a failed stow will not leave you with a partially installed 
       package.
    3. Minimises the set of operations that need to be performed.
    4. Operations are executed as a batch which is much faster
       This can be an advantage when upgrading packages on a live system
       where you want to minimise the amount of time when the package is
       unavailable.

** The above fixes the false conflict problem mentioned in the info file. 

** It also fixes the two bugs mentioned in the man page.

** Multiple stow directories will now cooperate in folding/unfolding.

** Conflict messages are more uniform and informative. 

** Verbosity and tracing is more extensive and uniform.

** Implemented option parsing via Getopt::Long.

** Default command line arguments set via '.stowrc' and '~/.stowrc' files.

Contents of these files are parsed as though they occurred first on the
command line.

** Support multiple actions per invocation.

In order for this to work, we had to add a new (optional) command line arg
(-S) to specify packages to stow.  For example, to update an installation
of emacs you can now do

        stow -D emacs-21.3 -S emacs-21.4a

which will replace emacs-21.3 with emacs-21.4a.
You can mix and match any number of actions, e.g.,

        stow -S p1 p2 -D p3 p4 -S p5 -R p6

will unstow p3, p4 and p6, then stow p1, p2, p5 and p6.

* New (repeatable) command line arg: --ignore='<regex>'

This suppresses operating on a file matching the regex (suffix), e.g.,

        --ignore='~' --ignore='\.#.*'

will ignore emacs and CVS backup files (suitable for ~/.stowrc file).

(I opted for Perl regular expressions because they are more powerful and
easier to implement).

** New (repeatable) command line arg: --defer='<regex>'

This defers stowing a file matching the regex (prefix) if that file is
already stowed to a different package, e.g.,

        --defer='man' --defer='info'

will cause stow to skip over pre-existing man and info pages.

Equivalently, you could use --defer='man|info' since the argument is just
a Perl regex.

** New (repeatable) command line arg: --override='<regex>'

This forces a file matching the regex (prefix) to be stowed even if the
file is already stowed to a different package, e.g.,

        --override='man' --override='info'

will unstow any pre-existing man and info pages that would conflict with
the file we are trying to stow.

Equivalently, you could use --override='man|info' since the argument is
just a Perl regex.

** The above gives the ability to manage packages with common content.

For example, man pages that are shared by a number of CPAN packages.
Using multiple stow directories and .stowrc files can also simplify
things.  In our setup we use the standard /usr/local/stow directory for
packages to be installed in /usr/local.  Since we install a large number
of extra Perl packages (currently about 300) we use an additional stow
directory: /usr/local/stow/perl-5.8.8-extras.  Both stow directories
contain a '.stow' file so that they collaborate appropriately.  I then use
the following .stowrc file in /usr/local/stow/perl-5.8.8-extras
  
        --dir=/usr/local/stow/perl-5.8.8-extras
        --target=/usr/local
        --override=bin
        --override=man
        --ignore='perllocal\.pod'
        --ignore='\.packlist'
        --ignore='\.bs'

When I stow packages from there, they automatically override any man pages
and binaries that may already have been stowed by another package or by
the core perl-5.8.8 installation.  For example, if you want to upgrade the
Test-Simple package, you need to override all the man pages that would
have been installed by the core package.  If you are upgrading CPAN, you
will also have to override the pre-existing cpan executable.

** By default, search less aggressively for invalid symlinks when unstowing.

That is, we only search for bad symlinks in the directories explicitly
mentioned in the installation image, and do not dig down into other
subdirs.  Digging down into other directories can be very time consuming
if you have a really big tree (like with a couple of Oracle installations
lying around). In general the old behaviour is only necessary when you
have really stuffed up your installation by deleting a directory that has
already been stowed.  Doing that on a live system is somewhat crazy and
hopefully rare.  We provide an option '-p|--compat' to enable the old
behaviour for those needing to patch up mistakes.

** Implement a test suite and support code.  

This was built before implementing any of the extra features so I could
more easily check for equivalent functionality.  The initial code base had
to be refactored substantially to allow for testing.  The test suite is
not exhaustive, but it should provide enough to check for regressions.


*  Changes in version 1.3.3:
**     Now requires Perl 5.005 or later
**     Initially empty directories are not removed anymore
**     Removed buggy fastcwd (we use POSIX::getcwd instead)
**     Fixed bug when the common Parent of Target dir and Stow dir was "/"
**     Fixed bug when handling directories named "0"
**     Stow now only warns the user if a directory is unreadable during unstowing.

*   Changes in version 1.3:
**     Added --restow option.
**     Fixed handling of slashes in package names.
**     Expanded configure-time search for Perl binary.

*   Changes in version 1.2:
**     Dependency on `pwd' removed.
**     Perl 4 compatibility fixes.
**     Manual expanded even more.

*   Changes in version 1.1:
**     Long and short options now accepted.
**     Manual expanded.
**     `make clean' removes stow (which is generated from stow.in).

*   Initial public release (v1.0) of Stow.


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