From: Christian Neukirchen <chneukirchen@...>
Date: 2006-08-16T19:38:33+09:00
Subject: Re: building a log by watching a file

Bil Kleb <Bil.Kleb@NASA.gov> writes:

> I've been paying attention to some mind-numbing chores
> I've been tasked to do lately, and I think Ruby might
> be able to help.  Let me know what you think.
>
> We have *many* crusty Fortran (and FORTRAN) codes lying
> around that do their job just fine, except they are
> a pain to run.
>
> One scenario might go like this,
>
>  $ ./code < input_deck
>  [edit a bunch of things in input_deck]
>
> This two step is repeated ad nauseam until you're satisfied
> with the output.  The kicker is you do this once to find
> the path to the solution, then you run 3,000 variations
> on this central theme.
>
> One burden is logging your sequence of input_deck
> edits, so that you can replay them for the
> next 3000 cases (adding logging to the crusty code
> is unthinkable).
>
> So, I was thinking of turning on a "watcher" that
> would save off inputs decks every time an edit is
> detected.
>
> Anyone have a one-liner?

What I'd do:

while true; do git commit -m "$(date)" input_deck; sleep 1; done

Ought to work with any reasonable VCS.

> Thanks,
-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen@gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org