Re: Configuration area in the repository

Lele Gaifax wrote:
> I opened an enhancement issue on the subject, see
> http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=1813

The generally accepted practice on this project is to not create issues without
discussing the subject on the dev list first (this is different than lots of
projects). In this case, the need for repository-wide configuration files is
well known, and impacts a number of existing proposed features, see #890 in
addition to 1002 (which you mention). There are others, I am sure.

In specific, your proposed solution is not that helpful because you don't deal
with several issues inherent in the topic:

1) Initialization - is the global config used when creating the user's local
configuration? This is one facet of Subversion which others have noted is very
annoying to have hardcoded in the binary instead of configurable. This kind of
repository-defaults should probably be stored in conf/ somewhere.

2) Collision - are repository-wide settings additive with user config, or do the
globals trump the user settings (or more likely vice versa).

3) Updates - if the repository-wide settings are updated, how is that
communicated to the client?

4) Mixed WC's - if you are proposing storing repository-specific defaults, how
to you handle working copies with svn:external links to other repositories.
There are inheritance issues here, too.

I'm not even sure where you intend the './.subversion' file to be located. That
is a relative path, but you don't say where it is relative to; I'm assuming you
are talking about the repository root (i.e. in the repository itself). If so,
there is no point in using the special ".subversion" filename, since that is an
artifact of *nix filesystem semantics (hidden file) which has no [current]
special handling within the Subversion filesystem code.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from making suggestions, just pointing out that
the issue has been considered before, and it is much more complex than might be
initially obvious.

John

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4720 Boston Way
Lanham, MD 20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5747
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