mergemaster and vimdiff

[Lowell Gilbert]

Dan Casey <dcasey at debtresolve.com> writes:

> Is there anyway to use vimdiff with mergemaster.

Not easily; the diff(1) command is hard-wired into the mergemaster
script.  However, you could do your own comparison with
MM_EXIT_SCRIPT.  Also, remember that mergemaster is just a shell
script itself, and you can use it as a base for your own version.

> Or is it safe to just see what files are different in etc, and vimdiff
> them manually?

It's safe, but not necessarily easy.  mergemaster is a lot easier than
doing it by hand.  Before mergemaster was added to the system, I used
this script:  http://Be-Well.Ilk.Org/~lowell/systuff/scripts/update-etc
and then diff'd by hand.

Are you aware of the '-a' option for mergemaster?  That will leave you
with a tree that contains only the files that mergemaster thinks need
a human to look at...

>                 I see /var/tmp/temproot has a lot more in it that I was
> expecting.  I thought it would be just etc.

Most of that is directories without files, though; *almost* everything
that can actually be changed is in /etc.