[fpc-pascal] Git line endings leading to patch problems - was [Semi-OT] Git format patches don't seem to work

[Marco van de Voort]

In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said:
> > Even up to date patch doesn't always process lineendings properly btw. I
> > have to dos2unix often on *nix too.
> 
> Interesting. I would think sharing code between platform with patches is
> a bog-standard task these days, and all tools in question should work
> perfectly with such files. Oh well.

The usual problem I guess. Unix tools don't deal pretty well with Windows or
on Windows.
 
> > Recently a lot of patches with incorrect filenames, or no filenames if the
> > patch is for a single file, or even not in universal format have been
> > submitted, and it takes some work (doable, but annoying) to apply them.
> 
> In that case you do much more effort that I. I simply return to sender
> and tell them to send me a universal patch format, and a link to my
> website on how to generate patches.

I clean out old bugs. The chance on getting a valid response on old patches
is low.

But I don't care so much about the -p parameter or the lineendings. That is
minor work and fixable.

However people should really, really use universal patches. They are much
more likely to apply cleanly, even after some time.

> I believe your "real culprit" might be Lazarus IDE itself. eg: When it
> detects external file changes it pops up with a diff window. That window
> shows non-universal patch format output, and no filename or path
> relating to the patches either. So maybe somebody has been copy and
> pasting that. Yuck!  Here is a small example from Lazarus IDE itself.

Possible. Many of the lowest quality bugreports are a passed on from
Lazarus. As of late, pretty stale half year old reports are being moved.
 
> Maybe somebody should file a bug report with Lazarus IDE project and
> tell them to switch to the more often used universal patch format.

I don't think this is a procedural problem. Lazarus simply gets the brunt of
the bugreports (and then specially the clueless ones).  Probably manpower
is simply lacking.

You can try to make the Lazarus people take the blame, but that doesn't
solve anything. I recognize the situation, it is similar with FPC around
2000, when there was a constant influx of clueless TP newvbies.

Some people extra working on triaging bugreports in the lazarus project
would probably solve this too.