There was some discussion, a while back, about overlapping change
sets. A perhaps over-brief summary seems to be:
> Several people wanted them well-managed, but Ben didn't think the
> problem was worth attention, so none was given it.
Some details of the implementation actually prevent overlaps (for
example, a given target can be in at most one changelist). But
overlaps are not completely prevented, and the system behavior when
they do arise is very surprising. Frankly, having just stumbled onto
these quirks, I'm feeling like they're an embarrassment to the entire
product, and shouldn't be allowed out the door. But I might be
overreacting. Examples:
$ svn changelist l1 src src/foo.c
$ svn changelist l2 src/bar.c
Question: is bar.c in list l1? Opinion differs:
$ echo >> src/bar.c
$ svn stat
--- Changelist 'l1':
src
src/foo.c
--- Changelist 'l2':
M src/bar.c
Guess not. But:
$ svn diff --changelist l1
Index: src/bar.c
===================================================================
--- src/bar.c (revision 2326)
+++ src/bar.c (working copy)
@@ -21,3 +21,4 @@
}
sleep(1);
}
+
Oh, guess it is. But:
$ svn ci -mx --changelist l1
svn: Unknown changelist 'l1'
"Unknown"? Even "stat" at least knows of this changelist, though it
shows no changes therein, what's this "unknown" business? OK, let's
try:
$ echo >> src/foo.c
$ svn ci -mx --changelist l1
Sending src/foo.c
Transmitting file data .
Committed revision 2329.
OK, so "ci" can make the intended sense of a changelist when there
are changes there, though not so much when they're not.
Then there's the behavior of auto-removal from a changelist. If you
commit a change, the item is removed from any change list where it
might reside; good so far. But if you commit the changelist, and it
contains some unmodified objects, they are not removed from the
change list. I can think of some workflows where that makes sense,
like "I need to make a related change to all these files, but I'll
commit them in chunks, say because I like to commit once a day." But
I could also tell that tale as "I need to make this change to all the
files in this directory, so I put the directory into the change list,
but hey, it never gets autoremoved because I'm not actually changing
the directory." The feature implements a certain workflow, but not
others, yet there seems no guidance on what to expect.
-==-
Jack Repenning
Chief Technology Officer
CollabNet, Inc.
8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 600
Brisbane, California 94005
office: +1 650.228.2562
mobile: +1 408.835.8090
raindance: +1 877.326.2337, x844.7461
aim: jackrepenning
skype: jrepenning
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Received on Sat Oct 6 00:30:36 2007