I would like to ask people to think about the interface issues here before
rushing out the code.
As I see it, the problem is that "svn copy" is ambiguous: If you do "svn
copy .../aa/bb .../cc/dd", its operation depends on whether .../cc/dd
already exists, or only ../cc. In the first case, it creates .../cc/dd/bb,
in the second, it creates .../cc/dd. When the command is used
"interactively", the user knows which case applies. But when the command is
used in a script, it is much more likely that an error will happen, where
the wrong situation obtains.
IMHO, the correct solution is a version of "svn copy" that *requires* that
.../cc/dd not exist, and reports an error if it does. (The reason for
choosing that case is that the other case of "svn copy" can always be
implemented in terms of this case, but not vice-versa.) Such a restricted
version will not succeed but produce an unexpected result.
Changing "svn copy" to "delete .../cc/dd if it exists, then replace it with
a copy of X" is not, IMHO, a good idea, as it does a different version of
the sort of conditional behavior that is causing the problem in the first
case.
If people feel a need to "delete X and replace it with a copy of Y", that
should be performed as two steps. I do know that the WC can represent such
a thing, as "svn merge" can get WCs into such a state. (It is flagged by
"svn status" as "R".)
Dale
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Received on Fri Aug 19 16:12:31 2005