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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/stow.texi')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/stow.texi | 23 |
1 files changed, 23 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/doc/stow.texi b/doc/stow.texi index 7bbbe58..155a64a 100644 --- a/doc/stow.texi +++ b/doc/stow.texi @@ -340,6 +340,29 @@ pages that are owned by stow and would otherwise cause a conflict. The regular expression is anchored to the beginning of the path relative to the target directory, because this is what you will want to do most of the time. +@item -a +@itemx --adopt +@strong{Warning!} This behaviour is specifically intended to alter the +contents of your stow directory. If you do not want that, this option +is not for you. + +When stowing, if a target is encountered which already exists but is a +plain file (and hence not owned by any existing stow package), then +normally Stow will register this as a conflict and refuse to proceed. +This option changes that behaviour so that the file is moved to the +same relative place within the package's installation image within the +stow directory, and then stowing proceeds as before. So effectively, +the file becomes adopted by the stow package, without its contents +changing. + +This is particularly useful when the stow package is under the control +of a version control system, because it allows files in the target +tree, with potentially different contents to the equivalent versions +in the stow package's installation image, to be adopted into the +package, then compared by running something like @samp{git diff ...} +inside the stow package, and finally either kept (e.g. via @samp{git +commit ...}) or discarded (@samp{git checkout HEAD ...}). + @item -n @itemx --no @itemx --simulate |