Re: collected vs distributed working copy metadata

On Wed, 9 Aug 2000, Branko [iso-8859-2] Čibej wrote:

> Here are some of the options as I see them:
>
> 1) Metadata in subdir of each directory
>
> pro: subdirs are easily detachable
> con: globbing problems, etc.

There are other pros as well that should be taken into account.

Having distributed files mean less likeness of many processes trying to lock
or mess around with the same file or dir at the same time. It means we can
have files for special purposes and let the files remain simple to parse and
to use simple syntaxes. As opposed to keep it all in a single file at least,
as suggested below.

> 2) Metadata only in subdir of top directory
>
> pro: no globbing problems, except in top dir;
> export == checkout + remove metadata dir
> con: need special tool for detaching subdirs

More cons:

It is hard to find the top directory. Lots of programs will have to do lots
of directory scannings.

It will also give some kind of problem when the amount of sub-directories
grow. Or should there be a mirrored tree of directories inside that dir?
There will be a need for very many files that need names...

> 5) Metadata in _one file_ in each directory
>
> pro: subdirs are easily detachable;
> exactly as many globbing problems as, e.g., .cvsignore
> con: would have to be some sort of filesystem-in-a-file,
> not easily examined or modified by hand.

Also, this will suffer in large directories or when very many users doing
operations on the same dir since all operations will use (lock) the same
single file.

> I'd go for 5), if we could have a reasonable implementation for the
> metadata file, plus tools to view/modify the contents.

I'd vote for 1) any day.

my 2 cents

-- 
      Daniel Stenberg - http://daniel.haxx.se - +46-705-44 31 77
   ech`echo xiun|tr nu oc|sed 'sx\([sx]\)\([xoi]\)xo un\2\1 is xg'`ol