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Re: Why doesn't svn use /tmp for temporary files ?

From: Michael Haggerty <mhagger_at_alum.mit.edu>
Date: 2006-05-12 10:55:50 CEST

Garrett Rooney wrote:
> On 5/11/06, subversion.mexon@spamgourmet.com
> <subversion.mexon@spamgourmet.com> wrote:
>> So why doesn't Subversion behave like CVS, and indeed every other unix
>> program, and use /tmp for temporary files? It seemed pretty
>> counterintuitive.
>
> Subversion often atomically copies temporary files into place, so that
> you either see all of a file or none of it. This doesn't work if
> you're copying between two filesystems, and since /tmp is often on a
> different filesystem than your working copy, that would be a problem.

Your argument might be convincing for many types of temporary files, but
I don't see how it applies to svn-commit.tmp.

The main advantages of /tmp are (1) the files are not cluttering up the
WC and daring svn to commit them; (2) /tmp is typically cleaned up
periodically to remove ancient detritus. These benefits would accrue
not only to the svn-commit.tmp files (which svn tries to clean up), but
also editor backup files like svn-commit.tmp~, which svn doesn't know
about and therefore cannot clean up.

Even if temp files really have to be in the current WC due to some
atomicity requirement, then maybe they could be tucked away in a
subdirectory of .svn where they won't bother anybody?

Michael

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Received on Fri May 12 10:57:04 2006

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