RFC: Reverting the semantic change made in r31101

I'm strongly considering reverting the behavioral change made in r31101, by
making the --depth option as applied to 'svn add' cover the depth of the
crawl (an operational depth) but still always set the recorded depth of the
newly added items to "infinity".

The change in r31101 was discussed here:

   http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2008-04/0444.shtml

I contributed to the thread, but wish to recant the poor advice I gave there.

Here's the problem: GUI clients often perform their operations using
shallow operational depths (because individual targets can be selected from
lists thereof). This means that any new directories added by such a client
essentially remain "unsubscribed" from changes which happen under them
later. That's inconsistent with Subversion's mission of promoting
collaboration and avoiding unexpected behaviors. I submit that just because
I was the guy that added an empty "trunk" to my repository doesn't mean I
don't want to see all the files and directories my colleagues add to in
future commits when I update.

There are three approaches I could take here.

The first is a slightly complex approach which allows a syntax like this:
'svn add --depth OPERATION-DEPTH --set-depth RECORDED-DEPTH' (where both
depths default to "infinity"). As you can probably guess, this would
empower folks (including GUIs, though the APIs) to control both the
operational depth of the crawl for newly added items, as well as the
recorded depth of the newly added items. But I'm not sure there's much
value for the complexity here in terms of real-world use-cases, though, and
frankly I tied my brain in knot just considering the various interpretations
of that syntax.

The second is the simple approach and that I one I lean towards: always add
new items with a recorded depth of "infinity". This is just a partial
reversion of r31101 back to Subversion 1.5.x functionality. (I've attached
a patch for this.)

The third approach is the simplest (for us): do nothing, and tell GUI
clients that after committing adds of new items of non-infinite depth
(resulting in revision X), they should then 'svn update --set-depth infinity
--revision X' each of those items behind the scenes so the user is
"subscribed" to future changes in those directories.

Also floating in my thinkspace is the fact that 'svn mkdir' doesn't let you
choose the recorded depth of the new directory you've created. You could
say that this makes 'svn mkdir FOO' inconsistent with 'mkdir FOO; svn add -N
FOO'. You could also say, "So what, that just gives folks more behavioral
options."

Thoughts?

-- 
C. Michael Pilato <cmpilato_at_collab.net>
CollabNet   <>   www.collab.net   <>   Distributed Development On Demand
------------------------------------------------------
http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=462&dsMessageId=1615432

When doing 'svn add', always set the recorded depth of newly added
items to "infinity". This is a partial reversion of r31101.

* subversion/libsvn_client/add.c
  (add_dir_recursive): Perform the add of the directory, setting its
    recorded depth to infinity.

* subversion/tests/cmdline/depth_tests.py
  (add_tree_with_depth): Change test expectations.

Index: subversion/libsvn_client/add.c
===================================================================
--- subversion/libsvn_client/add.c (revision 37119)
+++ subversion/libsvn_client/add.c (working copy)
@@ -349,8 +349,8 @@
     SVN_ERR(ctx->cancel_func(ctx->cancel_baton));
 
   /* Add this directory to revision control. */
- err = svn_wc_add3(dirname, adm_access, depth, NULL, SVN_INVALID_REVNUM,
- ctx->cancel_func, ctx->cancel_baton,
+ err = svn_wc_add3(dirname, adm_access, svn_depth_infinity, NULL,
+ SVN_INVALID_REVNUM, ctx->cancel_func, ctx->cancel_baton,
                     ctx->notify_func2, ctx->notify_baton2, pool);
   if (err && err->apr_err == SVN_ERR_ENTRY_EXISTS && force)
     svn_error_clear(err);

Index: subversion/tests/cmdline/depth_tests.py
===================================================================
--- subversion/tests/cmdline/depth_tests.py (revision 37119)
+++ subversion/tests/cmdline/depth_tests.py (working copy)
@@ -1238,22 +1238,22 @@
   # Simple case, add new1 only, set depth to files
   svntest.actions.run_and_verify_svn(None, None, [],
                                      "add", "--depth", "files", new1_path)
- verify_depth(None, "files", new1_path)
+ verify_depth(None, "infinity", new1_path)
 
   # Force add new1 at new1 again, should include new2 at empty, the depth of
   # new1 should not change
   svntest.actions.run_and_verify_svn(None, None, [],
                                      "add", "--depth", "immediates",
                                      "--force", new1_path)
- verify_depth(None, "files", new1_path)
- verify_depth(None, "empty", new2_path)
+ verify_depth(None, "infinity", new1_path)
+ verify_depth(None, "infinity", new2_path)
 
   # add new4 with intermediate path, the intermediate path is added at empty
   svntest.actions.run_and_verify_svn(None, None, [],
                                      "add", "--depth", "immediates",
                                      "--parents", new4_path)
   verify_depth(None, "infinity", new3_path)
- verify_depth(None, "immediates", new4_path)
+ verify_depth(None, "infinity", new4_path)
 
 def upgrade_from_above(sbox):
   "upgrade a depth=empty wc from above"