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Re: svn blame not working for files which had binary mime-type in a previous revision

From: Julian Foad <julianfoad_at_btopenworld.com>
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:48:57 +0000 (GMT)

Stefan Sperling wrote:
> Ferenc Kovacs wrote:
>> It is really unintuitive to guess that blame doesn't work because the file
>> HAD a binary mimetype in the past (and from a quick test it seems that the
>> blame will be skipped even if the versions shown by blame all happened
>> after the binary mime-type was removed).
>
> This probably happens because Subversion needs to evaluate the entire
> operative revision range of the blame operation for changes, even
> if a revision in the range doesn't actually contribute changes to
> the file (or contributes changes that are reversed by later revisions).
>
> If you blame a revision range where none of the versions of the file
> has a binary svn:mime-type property set, but you still get the error,
> then I agree that this smells like an issue worth investigating. Is this
> the case? If so, can you provide a reproduction script for this problem?
>
>> So if possible I would prefer telling the user why is that happening.
>
> What exactly do you mean here?
>
> If you mean that the error message should explain how binary files work,
> I disagree. Users should be already informed about how Subversion handles
> binary files when they run 'svn blame'. If users don't understand this
> they should learn more about Subversion (e.g. by reading the documentation)
> to make efficient use of it. I don't think having error messages substitute
> for documentation is a good idea in general.

I agree with Ferenc's point that the reason for the error is obscure, and his request that the error message should indicate that the 'is binary' indication may come from some past revision.

- Julian
Received on 2013-01-31 17:49:34 CET

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