Re: automatic keyword un-expansion on 'svn {ps,pd,pe} svn:keywords'?

Peter Samuelson wrote:
> Christof Douma points out that "svn pdel svn:keywords" does not
> un-expand a file's keywords in the working copy. He thinks it should,
> and I tend to agree. Present behavior leaves a working copy diff due
> to keyword expansion, even if the file is otherwise unchanged.

I'll just mention a few points.

When a user asks Subversion to stop handling a keyword,

  * some will want to remove the entire keyword from the text;

  * some will want to keep the last expanded value as ordinary versioned text;

  * some will want to keep an empty, contracted keyword placeholder in the text.

The first requires manual editing, and that's fine. Of the second and third,
do we have a hope of guessing which is more common?

Is it "svn diff" that we should be fixing, rather than "propdel"?

Consider the dangers of modifying a file while it might be open in a user's
editor. The same dangers apply to "update", "merge", etc., so it's "just" a
matter of user education, but text changes caused by a property command is a
new phenomenon.

If we are going to contract the keyword, consider doing it at commit time
rather than at prop-change time, as that would avoid the text-change problem.
(Do what, exactly? Contract the set of keywords that is the union of base and
working prop values?)

More thought required.

- Julian

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Received on Wed Mar 15 18:39:39 2006