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> This wouldn't be an issue if patches were XML or JSON with a well defined schema, but everything must be a boutique undocumented format in the world of Unix tools.

Patch files are readable by humans. Replacing them with XML or JSON would fix this problem, but at the expense of removing a core feature.

phoe-krk 16 hours ago [ - ]

If, by "readable by humans", you mean "it would reliably fool humans as well", I'd say it's an ambiguity bug regardless of whether it's "a core feature" or not. A patch format, human-readable or not, should clearly indicate which part is the commit message and which part is an actual diff; it's not the case here.

yjftsjthsd-h 14 hours ago [ - ]

Alright, allow me to disambiguate in your preferred format.

  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <claims> <claims_I_did_not_make description='Claims that I did not make or defend.'> <claim>Patch is perfect.</claim> <claim>Ambiguity is good.</claim> <claim>There are no better formats for conveying patches.</claim> </claims_I_did_not_make> <claims_I_did_make description='What I actually said.'> <claim>Patch files are readable by humans.</claim> <claim>Being readble by humans is useful.</claim> <claim>XML is painful for humans to read and write.</claim> <claim>JSON is painful for humans to read and write.</claim> <claim caveat='Actually this would require all parties to handle JSON or XML correctly which on further reflection I am not sure about. Still, it is a claim I initially made.'>JSON or XML would actually fix this problem in the format.</claim> </claims_I_did_make> <claims_I_did_not_make_but_am_open_to description='Things that were never specified but that I do not actually disagree with.'> <claim>The patch format could be improved.</claim> <claim>Formats should be unambiguous.</claim> <claim>Separating sections is good.</claim> </claims_I_did_not_make_but_am_open_to> </claims>

em-bee 10 hours ago [ - ]

that's not the preferred format for writing XML, this is:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <claims>
      <claims_I_did_not_make description='Claims that I did not make or defend.'>
        <claim>Patch is perfect.</claim>
        <claim>Ambiguity is good.</claim>
        <claim>There are no better formats for conveying patches.</claim>
      </claims_I_did_not_make>
      <claims_I_did_make description='What I actually said.'>
        <claim>Patch files are readable by humans.</claim>
        <claim>Being readble by humans is useful.</claim>
        <claim>XML is painful for humans to read and write.</claim>
        <claim>JSON is painful for humans to read and write.</claim>
        <claim caveat='Actually this would require all parties to handle JSON or XML correctly which on further reflection I am not sure about. Still, it is a claim I initially made.'>JSON or XML would actually fix this problem in the format.</claim>
      </claims_I_did_make>
      <claims_I_did_not_make_but_am_open_to description='Things that were never specified but that I do not actually disagree with.'>
        <claim>The patch format could be improved.</claim>
        <claim>Formats should be unambiguous.</claim>
        <claim>Separating sections is good.</claim>
      </claims_I_did_not_make_but_am_open_to>
    </claims>

yjftsjthsd-h 7 hours ago [ - ]

What I posted is valid XML. And even prettified, it's a pain to read.

em-bee 30 minutes ago [ - ]

it was valid but not the way XML is written or read by humans which is what we are discussing. how much of a pain it is to read is a matter of taste. i won't deny that. but XML can be made more readable without fail because it is a structured format. i would not have been ale to reformat a patch text the way i reformatted this XML example. XML is also more powerful. it could handle word based changes, as opposed to patch which can only do line based changes. same goes for JSON. patch could potentially be improved, but i don't see how it could handle word based changes without extra syntax to mark line breaks.

Cpoll 14 hours ago [ - ]

That's really not that bad, especially with indentation and color coding. You're kind of cheating by putting it into HN, which is terrible for code.

> XML is painful for humans to read and write.

Speaking of claims no-one made; no-one's talking about writing patch files by hand.

antiframe 13 hours ago [ - ]

If that's good enough to be human readable than patch is even better.

People do write patch files be hand.

wnoise 13 hours ago [ - ]

More commonly, edit them.