patch filenames

[Roland Illig <rillig%NetBSD.org@localhost>]

Hi,

I'd like to change the filenames of patch files, since the naming scheme 
patch-[a-z][a-z] doesn't give me enough expressiveness for efficient work.

We already had a discussion about this topic in June and July 2004:

    http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2004/06/
    http://mail-index.netbsd.org/tech-pkg/2004/07/
        ([change request] pattern for patch filenames)

The discussion revealed that there are some different opinions of how 
patch files should be named, but arguments for a specific scheme were 
rare, and suddently the discussion ended. We had these suggestions:

1. Keep everything as is (patch-[a-z][a-z], one patched file per patch):

[pro] simple, easy, and it works.
[pro] short filenames, viewable even on small screens.
[pro] the order in which the patches are applied doesn't matter.
[con] CVS history contains comments on many unrelated patches.

2. Filename based on the patched file, one patched file per patch:

[pro] patch filename shows which file is patched.
[pro] the order in which the patches are applied doesn't matter.
[pro] CVS history contains only changes to this particular file.
[con] the name of the patched file occurs three times: in the filename, 
in the "---" line, in the "+++" line (redundancy).
[con] there's a naming scheme to be learnt

3. Group functional changes into one patch file:

[pro] the patch can be easily removed once the problem has been fixed 
upstream.
[con] a file may be patched by multiple patches. The order in which the 
patches are applied becomes important.



I'd like to establish variant 2. (I don't want to displace variant 1, I 
just want to be allowed to use variant 2 for packages I maintain.) Other 
opinions?

Roland