timestamps, take N+1

OK, I'm bringing up the timestamps feature one more time. Everyone
brace yourselves. :-)

A quick recap:

  * Absolutely everyone wants 'svn export' to use commt-timestamps.
    This will be done, it's just an itty-bitty change to the export
    editor. Very easy, end of story.

  * Some folks want svn to have a complete mtime preservation system.
    Some folks don't like this idea. But either way, it involves
    creating new property types, new marshalling, and from what I can
    tell, is generally way too complex to just "throw into" svn 1.0.

  * Some folks want svn to have cvs-like behavior: that is, have 'svn
    checkout' to set commit-timestamps. Some variations have been
    discussed that have 'svn up' either [always|sometimes] using
    current timestamps. And some people don't like any of this idea,
    they find it to be inconsistent/weird, and think the status quo
    (to do nothing) is just perfect.

I have a concrete proposal now, here it is:

  1. Have 'svn export' use commit-timestamps unconditionally.

  2. Add a switch to both 'svn checkout/update' that causes all
     affected files to receive commit-timestamps. By default, these
     commands continue to use 'now' times as they do already.

Here's why I like this proposal:

  * gives users a choice. By default, most developers want 'now'
    timestamps, so that 'make' works as they expect. But release
    managers or automated build systems can pass the new switch, and
    get the commit-times they want.

  * tiny code change. We already have the commit-timestamps available
    in update_editor.c; it's just a matter of adding a flag to the
    edit_baton and tweaking svn_wc_install_file().

  * matches a cvs feature. Our target audience is CVS users, and a
    lot of them have come to expect/depend on the availability of
    commit timestamps. Some may argue that svn is more "sane" by not
    making it the default, but at least the feature will be available.

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Received on Thu Jul 3 04:14:15 2003