[Python-Dev] Split unicodeobject.c into subfiles?

[Chris Jerdonek]

On Thu, Oct 4, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Victor Stinner <victor.stinner at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to split the huge unicodeobject.c file into smaller
> files. It's just the longest C file of CPython: 14,849 lines.
> ...
> I only see one argument against such refactoring: it will be harder to
> backport/forwardport bugfixes.

I am not siding with either side of the change yet, but an additional
argument against is that history may become less convenient to
navigate and track (e.g. hg annotate may lose information depending on
how the split is done).

Do we have a preferred way to split files?  For example, hg rename
could be used just for the largest chunk.  Or hg copy could be used on
all chunks but one.  I imagine (but have not confirmed) that the
latter would preserve hg annotate and let merges propagate to all
files, but it would also result in spurious merge conflicts in every
one of the files resulting from the split.

--Chris