ENB: paste-retaining-clones has always beeen broken & my plans to fix it

[Edward K. Ream]

Warning: Please consider paste-retaining-clones unreliable until further notice. Leo's new structure tests have shown that paste-retaining-clones has always been buggy!

This Engineering Notebook discusses the bug and my plans for fixing it.

Problems with paste-retaining-clones

The paste-retaining-clones logic calls fc.linkChildrenToParents as a last-minute hack. Alas, the versions in both the master and devel branches are buggy. No quick fix seems possible.

Félix points out that paste-retaining-clones has never replaced existing body text with pasted body text. In other words, the command has never enforced the "pasted nodes rule" policy. Félix and I have discussed various strategies without a clear conclusion.

Remediation Plan

Step 1: Warn Leonistas about long-standing problems with paste-retaining clones.

That's what this ENB does :-)

Step 2: Enable automatic link repair in c.checkVnodeLinks and merge the changes into devel.

This item is urgent. I'll create a new PR for this item and merge it into devel and PR #3467 asap. At that point, devel will be approximately as reliable as it has ever been :-)

Step 3: Continue work on PR #3467: fix paste-retaining clones

Automatic link correction might render fc.linkChildrenToParents unnecessary. But lots of testing would have to back up such a conclusion!

In any case, enforcing the "pasted nodes rule" policy will not be easy!

I might rewrite paste-retaining-clones, perhaps basing it on the new p.archive method. Small hacks are unlikely to work.

Summary

Leo's paste-retaining-clones command has never worked as intended! Use at your own risk!

A new (small!) PR will soon add automatic link correction to all branches. This PR will feature a stringent new unit test for the link correction in c.checkVnodeLinks.

 PR #3467 will attempt a complete fix for paste-retaining-clones. This work is experimental and is likely to delay Leo 6.7.4.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Saturday, July 29, 2023 at 4:01:18 AM UTC-5 Edward K. Ream wrote:

> PR #3467 will attempt a complete fix for paste-retaining-clones. This work is experimental and is likely to delay Leo 6.7.4.

Félix suggests we wait until Leo 6.7.6 to enforce the "pasted nodes rule" policy. I tend to agree.

PR #3467 need only ensure that structure links are as intended. But even just that much might require considerable work.

Edward

[Edward K. Ream]

On Sat, Jul 29, 2023 at 4:08 AM Edward K. Ream <edre...@gmail.com> wrote:

> PR #3467 will attempt a complete fix for paste-retaining-clones.

Great news. The "Emergency" PR (PR #3468) should make paste-retaining-clones work as intended! 

The PR fixes paste-retaining-clones by replacing the hopeless fc.linkChildrenToParents with c.checkOutline!

The PR probably does not enforce the "pasted nodes rule" policy, but that's a nit.

To do: complete the unit test for the error recovery code. I'll merge the PR as soon as this task is complete.

Edward