On 8/28/06, Erik Huelsmann <ehuels@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 8/28/06, Andrew Webb <andrew.microi@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd like to add my voice to those calling for SVN to keep files'
> > last-modified date/times. I see you have this as being considered
> > for 1.5.
> >
> > I'm trying to persuade my day job to move from VSS to another system.
> > Subversion is the first choice. I installed SVN and Tortoise over
> > the weekend, and have been busy playing and enjoying. I'd say that
> > the only basic feature that's missing (compared to our current VSS
> > use) is keeping files' last-modified times. These are important to
> > us.
>
> Hi. Could you elaborate a bit more on the subject: why are they
> important? What do you do with them?
>
> Subversion extentions are developed by carefully considering the user
> benefit/development-or-maintenance cost balance. We have many feature
> requests and have implemented some little-used features
> (use-commit-times) in the past, but they end up being poorly
> maintained or hard to maintain.
>
> So: I can do nothing but value your request, but at the same time ask
> for a larger contribution: tell us your use-case please!
>
> bye,
>
> Erik.
>
Hi Erik,
Apart from the fact that it's of general interest to me when a code
file was last modified (something that seems to get lost when you
import the files into an SVN repository), my main use-case is that of
copying only those files that have changed to a virtual machine, where
I build installers. The reason for this is slow operation of the VM,
and slow access of the VM to the network. I really have to keep the
number of file copies down to a minimum. Now some of the files that
get copied are DLLs and EXEs, and thus not under source code control
in themselves. But other files are data files, and currently I rely
on their last-modified dates to copy only those that have changed
since a certain date. This is how I work with VSS as our source code
control system. Of course it may be the case that the use of SVN may
afford a different style of working that means I don't have to rely on
last-modified dates.
Another use-case is receiving data files from, and sending data files
to, people who are external to the developer team (e.g. marketing
folks, or even clients) who don't use source code control. Although
documents should have in-document revision histories, sometimes this
doesn't happen with the desired accuracy. In this case last-modified
dates on the files can prove invaluable in checking which is the most
up-to-date copy of a document. This is why we're careful to always
Zip-compress files, even a single file that would be considered as a
safe email attachment: Zips maintain the last-modified dates.
Andrew
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Received on Mon Aug 28 21:01:29 2006