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

Dirk Schenkewitz wrote:

[...]

> - These informations are stored and presented by every unix/linux
> filesystem. Not storing them renders this part of the filesystem
> useless. Why did the developers of the filesystems take the effort

although I wouldn't express it this way ("useless"), it's IMO indeed
one of the most important metadata properties of a file.

Reading the announcement at http://subversion.tigris.org/
"Directories, renames, and file meta-data are versioned" I expected
that at least the modification time of a file is saved, not only the
"execute" flag (which isn't even supported by each platform).

Not doing so should be stated at least in the FAQ.

> to implement it? Because there is some use to it, whatever it may
> be, perhaps something I never thought of.
> - People, including me, want to know "when was the last change to
> that file?", even if the file was laying around for some time
> (months/years!) before being put under subversion control. This

ack. Especially if there is some relation from "pre svn" times to
other "non svn" versions of the file. Or other situations where files
are related to external sources.

> problem cannot be solved using --use-commit-times.

It can if you make one commit per file on initial import. Slow and
ugly, but it works tolerably.

> In general, when putting something under a VCS, I want to loose
> *as little information as possible*.

I agree.

> Since Oliver's problem is the nonexistence of a windows build of
> subversion with the meta-data patches, there might be a solution:

not only. If Phil Marek's solution remains a patch, it will always be
some effort to make it working in a new version. I would use the
solution only if it is in the main version.

If not, and if I needed the timestamp, I likely would use another
method, e.g. hook scripts saving the mtime in a file property. But at
the moment, I can live with my "adjust commit time" hack.

Oliver

-- 
Oliver Betz, Muenchen
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