On 1 August 2012 13:35, David T. Lewis <lewis at mail.msen.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 01, 2012 at 01:00:32PM +0100, Frank Shearar wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> How important is the changes file, really? I don't mean in terms of
>> recovering from crashes, because I use my changes file all the time.
>>
>> I mean, if a changes file is not present, does everything still work?
>> I ask, because SmalltalkImage >> #logChange: specifically protects
>> against a missing changes file (in the sense that it does nothing if
>> (Sources at: 2) == nil). However, if you start up an image with no
>> changes file, there's a big fat modal dialog warning about the missing
>> file, but clicking through results in what looks - at first glance at
>> least - like a normally functioning image.
>>
>> If a changes file is _desirable_ but not _necessary_, could we remove
>> the dialog (or do something different for -headless images, like
>> dumping a warning to stderr)? Or simply start a new changes file if
>> one's missing?
>>
>> The concrete problem I'm trying to work around is with the CI test
>> script. Running the test means modifying the changes file and Jenkins
>> really does not like that. If the changes file were not necessary I
>> could simply not keep it under version control.
>>
>> Sometimes, I don't _care_ about recovering from a crash.
>
> You can symlink the changes file to /dev/null and all of the changes
> will go into the bit bucket:
>
>   $ rm myImage.changes
>   $ ln -s /dev/null myImage.changes
>   $ squeak myImage

Ah, yes of course. That's the natural thing to do! Pity I didn't think
of it, but oh well!

Thanks!

frank

> Dave
>
>