Re: [TSVN] Re: symbolic links - unix to unix via Tortoise

On 8/9/05, Mark Richards <mark.richards@massmicro.com> wrote:

> My understanding is that a windows symbolic link is a file with a special
> bit set to indicate to the O/S how it should be dealt with.

It's a normal text file (the text indicating where the link points to)
and the svn:special property set.

> If the file attributes (including this bit) cannot be read by Tortoise, that
> seems to me bad news. If these attributes are not available through DAV,

It can be read by Tortoise. But Tortoise (more specific: the
Subversion library on Windows) simply can't treat that file as a link
because Windows doesn't support such links at all!

> that's worse. It's clear to me (now!) that Samba doesn't do this task when
> working through the windows "exploder" because exploder wasn't designed to
> handle these attributes. However I'm uncertain if Samba is even used when
> SVN is accessed using Tortoise through the web interface. Besides, if the
> Tortoise Repository Browser and other extensions are built from the ground
> up, isn't it possible to accommodate symbolic links?

What do you mean with 'web interface'? If you're accessing a working
copy via SAMBA, then it's like you have a working copy on your
harddrive (just slower), and for every application it looks as a
normal windows file system (which doesn't know anythink about symbolic
links!).

The same applies if you're accessing the repository directly via DAV -
DAV itself doesn't know symbolic links, as does windows. And since
you're accessing the repository from a windows client, that client
doesn't know anything about symbolic links either.

> If the attribute bit is readable, is there a programming or other issue that
> prevents Tortoise from handling these files?

The OS prevents Tortoise from handling these.

> Perhaps users who would like to use Tortoise SVN as a fully-featured front
> end to SVN for Linux development would be willing to set a configuration
> switch that says:
>
> [ ] Repository = unix
> [ ] Target = unix

You can try and ask on the Subversion mailing list for such a feature.
But if you think about it, it simply *can't* work! But maybe those
guys can explain the reason why this can't work better than me.

Stefan

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