Is there a modern free D?VCS that can ignore mainframe sequence numbers?

Posted by Brent.Longborough on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Brent.Longborough
Published on 2009-05-10T12:12:44Z Indexed on 2010/03/13 11:35 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 312

Filed under:

80-column

|

vcs

|

dvcs

|

mainframe

I'm looking at migrating a large suite of IBM Assembler Language programs, from a vcs based on "filenames include version numbers", to a modern vcs which will give me, among other things, the ability to branch and merge.

These files have 80-column records, the last 8 columns being an almost-meaningless sequence number.

For a number of reasons which I don't really want to waste space by going into, I need the vcs to ignore (but hopefully preserve in some well-defined manner) the sequence number columns, and to diff and patch based only on the contents of the first 72 columns.

Any ideas?

Just to clarify "ignore but preserve": I accept it's a bit vague, as I haven't fully collected my ideas yet.

It would be something along the lines of this:

"When merging/patching, if one side has sequence numbers, output them; if more-than-one side has sequence numbers, use those present in file (1|2|3)"

Why do I want to preserve sequence numbers? First, they really are sequence numbers. Second, I want to reintegrate this stuff back onto the mainframe, where sequence numbers can be terribly significant. (Those of you who know what "SMP/E" means will understand. Those who don't, be happy, but tremble...)

I've just realised I hadn't accepted an answer. Difficult choice, but @Noldorin comes closest to where I have to go.

© Stack Overflow or respective owner

Related posts about 80-column

The 80 column limit, still useful?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Related: While coding, how many columns do you format for? Is there a valid reason for enforcing a maximum width of 80 characters in a code file, this day and age? I mostly use C, however this question is language agnostic. Its also subjective, so I'll tag it as such. Many individual… >>> More
Vim 80 column layout concerns

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I feel like the way I do 80-column indication in Vim is incorrect: set columns=80. At times I also set textwidth but I like to be able to see and anticipate line overflow with the set columns alternative. This has some unfortunate side effects -- I can't set number for fear of splitting between files… >>> More
Is there a modern free D?VCS that can ignore mainframe sequence numbers?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I'm looking at migrating a large suite of IBM Assembler Language programs, from a vcs based on "filenames include version numbers", to a modern vcs which will give me, among other things, the ability to branch and merge. These files have 80-column records, the last 8 columns being an almost-meaningless… >>> More
Any way to automatically wrap comments at column 80 in Visual Studio 2008? ..or display where column

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
Is there any way to automatically wrap comments at the 80-column boundary as you type them? ..or failing that, any way to display a faint line at the coulmn 80 boundary to make wrapping them manually a little easier? Several other IDEs I use have one or other of those functions and it makes writing… >>> More
WMII Terminal Width of 80 Columns for xterm (colrules)

as seen on Super User - Search for 'Super User'
I'm trying to get WMII to split horizontally at 80 columns for xterm, but I'm only seeing a way to do this via percentage. It would be nice to be able to set it by something other than percentage for various resolutions, but if I have to deal with that I will. The problem is that even percentages… >>> More

Related posts about vcs

sqlite database, RoR and VCS

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
What is the common way of dealing with the development.sqlite3 files with VCS (in particular, git)? If I commit this file to the VCS, will it be merged with another developer's copy? Or should each developer run the db:migrate task each time a new migration file is created? >>> More
How to commit a file conversion?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Say you've committed a file of type foo in your favorite vcs: $ vcs add data.foo $ vcs commit -m "My data" After publishing you realize there's a better data format bar. To convert you can use one of these solutions: $ vcs mv data.foo data.bar $ vcs commit -m "Preparing to use format bar" $ foo2bar… >>> More
Is a VCS appropriate for usage by a designer?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
I know that a VCS is absolutely critical for a developer to increase productivity and protect the code, no doubts about it. But what about a designer, using say, Photoshop (though it's not specific to any tools, just to make my point clearer). VCSs uses delta compression to store different versions… >>> More
Why should i write a commit message?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
Why should i write a commit message? I dont want to and i think its stupid every single time. A gui frontend i use which will go unnamed forces you to do it. I hear other doing it everytime even if they are using the VCS on the command line. If i commit several times a day and havent finish a feature… >>> More
Using branchs for a mini project or module of project: Good practice?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
In my repo I have 3 closely related mini projects: 1 server and 2 clients. They are all quite small (<3 files each). Since they are so small and so closely related I just dropped them in folders in one single repo. However now that I know I can't clone a single directory in my VCS of choice (Mercurial)… >>> More