On Dec 17, 2007 5:04 PM, Greg Lutz <greg@nearspace.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> This is actually a very belated reply to an svn.dev message of yours,
> from 2007-11-10 22:25:52 CET. I'm not posting it to the svn.dev list
> because a) I just joined the forum today, and b) what I have to say
> here may have been overtaken by developments I'm not fully aware of.
>
> I, like Julian Foad and others, like the proposed repository-relative
> URL proposal you have begun (?) to implement.
>
> However, the proposed syntax will be exceedingly inconvenient on
> Windows machines. That is, assuming that anyone with a Windows
> machine is in the habit of invoking svn from the cmd shell. The
> problem is that ^ is cmd's very odd choice for an escape character,
> for such usages as
>
> echo This is a vertical bar: ^|
>
> In order for the the invoked program to see a ^ character, the user
> must double it:
>
> echo This is a single caret: ^^
>
> Worse than that, due to more sterling Microsoft implementation
> decisions, each level of shell script (.bat or .cmd file) through
> which an argument passes requires another doubling of caret
> characters. I.e., if svninfo.bat contained
>
> svn info %1
>
> then to apply it to ^/trunk, you would have to enter
>
> svninfo ^^^^/trunk
>
> Please let me know if this concern is (still) relevant.
>
>
> Thanks,
> Greg Lutz
>
>
It is a great point and is certainly relevant so I AM including it on
the dev list.
The '^' character is still the planned implementation (as soon as I
get to it!). It is very unlikely that we will find a character that
will work correctly in all shells, as many of them use a large variety
of different symbols to do special things. The challenge is to find
one that causes the least pain and makes since. Another thing that
'^' has going for it is it is also the character that has been
implemented in the recent relative externals syntax.
So the question is how many people will this effect? Can you think of
another alternative that might provide for greater compatibility? It
hasn't been implemented yet so we could certainly change it if there
is a better character. I might be a little ignorant, but I assume
that most people using Subversion on Windows do so through one of the
GUI clients, or even if it isn't exclusively through the GUI client it
is the main mode of interaction. Of course we certainly don't want
to implement something that we know hurts "those other guys" if there
is a better choice.
Troy
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Received on Tue Dec 18 05:38:29 2007