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Re: Is there really no way to keep the file modification time intact?

From: Erik Huelsmann <ehuels_at_gmail.com>
Date: 2007-02-28 16:58:42 CET

> I think maybe the best way to look at it is to look at how Subversion
> handles other metadata. I think the file name also is metadata, but that
> is a special case because Subversion uses this as the file identifier,
> right? If I change the name of the file using the OS, subversion has
> lost track of the file. So maybe it is better to look at the execute bit
> as an example of comparable metadata. It is stored in the property
> svn:execute. As far as I understand, subversion sets this property to
> the right value on every commit and sets the execute bit right when a
> file is copied from the repository. I can not check this, as I am on
> Windows XP, which does not have execute bits for files.

Some time ago, there was an enhancement proposal on the developers
list about versioning modified time metadata. If you're interested,
you can find it in the archives at
http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2006-09/0492.shtml . There was no
implementation due to lack of (positive) reactions.

> I think this would probably the best way to handle the file modification
> time. Define a new reserved property, something like
> svn:modification-time and have it automatically set on commits.

This is what the proposal was about. I suggest the following action:

- I attach the proposal to issue #1256
- everybody who is interested can add his/her username to the CC list
- after an 8-week data-collection period, we can come back to this
list and discuss the design again with those interested (including
those on the issue CC list)
- when the discussion comes to a conclusion, it'll the proposal may
need adjusting
- after adjusting, we'll want to find people wanting (to help) to
implement the change (I'll have at most time to help coordinate)

> > Well, as you can see, versioning the modification time is not as
> > simple as it may sound.
> I certainly can imagine that it is not easy. If it was easy, maybe issue
> 1256 would have been resolved earlier.

Also, to the active developers this hasn't been much of an issue: each
scratches his/her own itches, but nobody seems to have this itch. I
can help coach someone wanting to jump into the codebase to help
develop this feature, but I don't have time to do more either.

bye,

Erik.

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Received on Wed Feb 28 16:59:10 2007

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