Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!im4u!ut-sally!husc6!hscfvax!mohamed
From: mohamed@hscfvax.harvard.edu (Mohamed_el_Lozy)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.bugs
Subject: Re: perl patch 18 makes perl uncompilable
Summary: Is patch too verbose?
Message-ID: <513@hscfvax.harvard.edu>
Date: 16 Feb 88 15:48:04 GMT
References: <2641@dciem.UUCP>
Reply-To: mohamed@hscfvax.harvard.edu (Mohamed_el_Lozy)
Organization: Health Sciences Computing Facility, Harvard University
Lines: 14
Posted: Tue Feb 16 10:48:04 1988

In article <2641@dciem.UUCP> tim@dciem.UUCP (Tim Pointing) writes:
>(I may have missed seeing a patch fail but I don't think so...)
>

A patch (#18) DID fail.  However, with the verbose output of patch it is
very easy to miss.  I did, and wondered what on earth was going on.

How useful is the verbose output of patch?  Does ity serve any purpose (other
than as a debugging tool while patch was being developped)?  Is there a
way to shut it up?

My feeling is that optimal behavior would be no output other than a patch
succeedded or patch failed message.  That would be impossible to miss.  Even
more in the UNIX tradition would be no message at all unless it failed.