Subversion URL Proposal - put it at the beginning

Hi

Justin Erenkrantz wrote:
[...]
> So, if you want to access resources that are versioned over HTTP, use
> DeltaV. We don't need to come up with our own scheme as this is a solved
> problem and one we support already (for the most part). (Read RFC
[...]

[...]
> Now, if you want to talk about a *user interface* for selecting old
> revisions, fine - keep at it. But, none of what everyone is talking
[...]

[...]
> ra_svn can come up with its own format, if Greg Hudson likes. But, I'll
[...]

I have quoted some important points Justin made, which I think can lead
to a different solution for the problem.

The requirements (IMHO) are:

1) It's a user interface problem
It started with the KDE ioslave problem, where you have a GUI which
only accepts "one string" input and needs a different (to HTTP) URL
scheme to be implemented

2) We have different protocols
File, WebDAV and the svn protocol

So what is the information one needs to enter?
- hostname (+ optional the repository path)
- protocol to use
- file/directory path inside the repository

My background is that I know something about CORBA and in the CORBA spec
they invented something like "location URLs" for a feature called
"initial references to services".
It doesn't matter if you have never heared about it because I just
borrowed the idea from them:

        Use your own URL scheme which supports "subprotocols"

An example:

To get a file from revision 10 of the repository use one of:

subversion:10:http://svn.example.com/path/to/repos/path/to/file
subversion:10:svn://svn.example.com/path/to/repos/path/to/file
subversion:10:file:///path/to/repos/path/to/file

Or more general:

subversion:<revision>:<subprotocol URL>

Then it's really ease for a subversion client to:
- choose a protocol
- read the revision
- get the correct file from the repository

This solves the problem not only for http, but for all protocols and it
solves the problem for the KDE kioslave problem.

The syntax/details can be changed, but I think the idea is clear.

Olli

P.S.: I don't consider a browser a subversion client, so this does not
solve the problem how to retrieve a revision only with a browser.

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Received on Wed Aug 6 20:51:06 2003