Re: Status of meta-data-versioning (mod time)?

On Monday 11 July 2005 16:21, Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:

> Once the project is in subversion's repository, tell me why you still  
> care about the original timestamps.  I'd like to know.  The answer I  
> always hear is, "I have a whole bunch of scripts that depend on  
> timestamps to perform copy synchronizations!"... to which I'm not  
> sympathetic.

There is much more than just a "bunch of scripts" that relies on mtime -- it
is The Make System ;).

Now, while many software dev. projects only keep sources in the repository,
there are some software projects, as well as _non-software development_
projects that need to have make-built files versioned as well. There was a
discussion about his some time ago, so I don't want to repeat it, just to
point this out.

Now, obviously, if mtimes are messed up then 'make' gets confused, and so are
the users. ;).

Time-stamp preservation is what helps me 90% of the time. I do use 'mod time'
versioning from Marek's branch all the time. No go without it.

Still, there is a possibility of race condition leading incorrect make-builds
when using genuine time-stamps. (I guess I posted once an example).

Even better solution for this purpose would probably be to ensure that commit
times of the files preserve the order of mtimes (i.e. commit oldest files
first, newest files last and stamp them accordingly). This would eliminate
the race condition.

However, mtimes are more logical and also serve other peoples needs.

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Saulius Gražulis
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