Re: Use of vcs_info

[Frank Terbeck <ft@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Benjamin R. Haskell wrote:
> I don't fully understand how best to use vcs_info.

First just to make sure: you did find the documentation in
zshcontrib(1), right? (man zshcontrib | less -p GATHER)

> My first question is:  what's with the weird $vcs_info_msg_#_ variable 
> names? (Why not an array?)

Those variables are exported (there was a reason for it, I don't
remember what it was exactly). And you can't export arrays.

> But, beyond that, my big question is: Is there a way to access the 
> vcs_comm variable that's sprinkled throughout the VCS_Info functions 

You shouldn't.
That's an associative array to allow bidirectional communication between
various parts of vcs_info. If you want to know some internals, I could
explain them, but for *using* vcs_info, you do not need to know anything
about that particular variable.

> directory?  My guess is that the easiest thing for me to do would be to 
> simply remove the 'local -Ax vcs_comm' line in vcs_info, but everything 
> else is so well-organized that I figured I must just be missing some way 
> to get that variable exported.

What do you need that variable for? Maybe if you'd explain what you want
to do, I'd have a suggestion.

> The most helpful page so far was Frank Terbeck's prompt_ft_setup 
> page[1].  Otherwise I'd've had to have read even more of the code to 
> figure out the various
>
> zstyle ':vcs_info:*' actionformats ''
> zstyle ':vcs_info:*' formats ''
> zstyle ':vcs_info:(sv[nk]|bzr):*' branchformat
>
> tricks that are available.
>
> I already do a bunch of stuff in my pre_cmd and pre_exec functions, and 
> I'd really like to just add some things to my prompt conditioned on 
> whether (for example) the current git repo is in a rebase, and maybe a 
> shortened version of the branch name.  So, is there a way to get the 
> info out of vcs_info?

Yes, there is.
The "shortened" make it a little trickier, though. In currently released
code (4.3.7), you can make one format to just be "%b" and change the
corresponding variable after calling vcs_info your precmd function.

Vcs_info in CVS has hooks. The manual explains them in some detail and
gives some simpler examples. You can use a "set-message" hook to get
full control over what will be inserted for the branch-name. That is
probably what you want.

Regards, Frank

-- 
In protocol design, perfection has been reached not when there is
nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
                                                  -- RFC 1925