Re: Help with svn:externals

In a message dated: 24 Oct 2002 10:30:58 CDT
Karl Fogel said:

>Paul Lussier <pll@lanminds.com> writes:
>> then, do I:
>>
>> svn propset svn:externals --file list_of_aliases.txt foo
>
>It's just like any other property. You set it in the working copy,
>then commit.

Oh, okay. I think I figured that out yesterday, but I don't remember.

>> Next, how exactly do I use this? Let's say that
>> 'list_of_aliases.txt' contains:
>>
>> foo /path/to/repo/foo
>> bar /path/to/repo/bar
>> ff /path/to/repo/foo/ff
>

>(Is it intentional that you have an external named foo inside a parent
>directory named foo? You'll end up with foo/foo, and if they're the
>same directory, you might get an infinite recursion of checkouts...)

Well, I definitely discovered the "infinite recursion" aspect of this :)

My expectation here was that the strings on the left were aliases for
the paths on the right, not that I would end up with a parent and
child of the same name, but rather that I could check out just a
subdir of the the parent 'repo' or, have one alias which would allow
me to checkout certain specified subdirs of the parent 'repo'.

>If you set the externals property on `foo', then you should check out
>a tree containing that directory `foo'. When you check it out (and
>when you update) it will grab the externals and include them as
>subdirs under `foo'.

Okay, I think that's not what I'm looking to do.

>Paul, have you done any experimenting yet? I think that would help.

I have, but I'm doing so blindly, since I think I have an incorrect
expectation of how externals can be used. I was thinking I could use
this property to create aliases for groups of subdirs under a parent
repo, rather than actually populating a tree with subdirs from other
repos.

Thanks for all the explanations. I think I understand (at least
partially) how externals work now. Though, either I don't understand
them enough to accomplish what I want, or, what I want isn't possible
with externals.

-- 
Seeya,
Paul
--
	It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.
	 If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!
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