On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 10:45 -0400, John Peacock wrote:
> I started to write up a notes/inherited-properties document last July
> (and I think I even posted an early version to the list). Here is is
> again with some modification in my thinking. Perhaps this can be the
> start of a wider discussion of how/whether Subversion could support
> inherited properties.
My feeling from the last round of conversation was that (a) inherited
properties might be really cool for the user, (b) but they could wind up
turning into a huge ball of spaghetti for the user, and (c) some of the
implementation challenges look really tough. ((a) and (b) are sort of
reminiscent of symlinks in a Unix filesystem. Extremely useful when you
need them, but they create all sorts of edge cases and they aren't
nearly as transparent as you initially imagine.)
So I'll outline a poor man's alternative.
* When a new file or directory is created without copy history, we
look for auto-props to apply to it in a property of the parent
directory, as well as in the client config. (If auto-props are
specified in both locations, we have to decide whether to merge them or
let one override the other; I haven't decided what I think is the best
answer.) Also, when a directory is created without copy history, we
copy the auto-props property from the parent. This would all be handled
by the client.
* If the user has an existing directory tree and wants to set a
property everywhere, the user has to use a recursive propset.
If this feels horribly space-intensive, note that in the current wc
design, iprops would have to be stored in each subdirectory in order to
maintain the severability of subdirectories. So we'll have to pay that
space penalty on the working copy side either way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscribe@subversion.tigris.org
For additional commands, e-mail: dev-help@subversion.tigris.org
Received on Thu May 19 18:14:39 2005