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Re: question: repository backups?

From: Ben Collins-Sussman <sussman_at_collab.net>
Date: 2001-12-12 00:04:51 CET

"Jay Freeman \(saurik\)" <saurik@saurik.com> writes:

> Additionally, there are sometimes cases where someone checks an
> amazingly large file into the repository for no good reason; such as ncb
> files (the Visual Studio class browser temporary files, which tend to
> get quite large), but this also goes for large graphics files that they
> were using to test). With CVS I can simply delete the file from the
> server end without causing the clients problems (the CVS client
> specifically supports "this file was removed from the repository" and
> deletes the file locally). With Subversion I don't see a good way to do
> this.

   $ svn rm http://path/to/big/ugly/file

   Poof, it's gone from the repository, and you didn't even need a
   working copy. Next time any client updates, it will be removed
   from their working copy.

> Also, with CVS you can do archiving. At some point I can take bodies of
> files that are in attics and therefore not in usage anymore; and
> entirely remove them from the repository off to some backup location
> (saving the active server from having the "hard disk requirements
> _never_ get smaller, only bigger) problem. If that file ever _is_
> needed they can request that it get put back on the server. Subversion
> doesn't seem capable of this either.

That's because Subversion is a true time machine. If I say, 'show me
what this project looked like on 9/3/2000', I shouldn't get an error
telling me that some file needs to be restored in the repository. I
guess this is just a 'purist' view of what a repository should be.

> Best case scenario (to me) would be a system integrated as part of the
> version control for entirely removing revisions. So, if revision 5
> added a file, and revision 6 removed it, revision 5 could be entirely
> deleted, linking the information from 4 directly to 6, and if people
> requested version 5 they got back a nice information bubble about how it
> was removed from the repository.

Already planned -- see issue #516, 'svn obliterate'.

> As for archival, I would want to tell Subversion to transfer from one
> database revisions earlier than a certain point maybe to a separate
> database (understanding that Subversion would probably want to avoid its
> own file format).

This seems doable someday, I suppose. If we can someday support
cross-repository links, then a file's history might be able to point
backwards into a different 'backed up' repsository.

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Received on Sat Oct 21 14:36:52 2006

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