Merge tracking: Getting only revision numbers in svn log

Hi guys,

I'm currently working on making my version control history search
tool[1] merge tracking aware.

Using "svn log -g" (or actually "include-merged-revisions" in the DAV
log-report) I'm able to get the merged revisions. So far so good.
However, the log will include not only pointers (the revision numbers)
to the merged revisions but the full information including author,
date, log message and changed paths.

This is undoubtedly a good thing if you're looking at single
revisions, but I'm looking at the entire log history so I have a
couple of concerns:

1) If the commit history has many merges and/or big merges a lot of
redundant log information is put on the wire. The information for a
commit will be logged once for the commit itself and then once more
for each merge of the revision.

2) Depending on the implementation in the Subversion server I would
imagine that getting all the revision information for merged revisions
put some extra load on the server.

Given that I only need the revision numbers for merged revisions I
have the following questions:

a) Is there a general interest in adding a switch that will make svn
log only return revision numbers for merged revisions? Or is this
somewhat of a corner case that normal users will never run into?

b) Would such a change require a lot of changes to the Subversion code
base? Would these changes be risky?

c) Are there good reasons not to add such a swith?

I'm a Java dork myself but it would be fun to at leat try and
implement something like this if someone with a clue could give me
some hints on where to start.

Looking forward to hearing what you guys think.

Thanks,
Eirik.

[1] http://svnsearch.org/svnsearch/repos/SVN/search

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Received on 2008-08-22 13:19:35 CEST