Re: Get exclusive lock

On Monday 03 March 2008, Oliver Fabelo wrote:
> I have some colleagues who work with vss and I want change to svn (they are
> losing data xD). They use binary files (word documents, crystal reports,
> .), and I want that they can work with exclusive locks in svn like vss
> works .
> [...]
> A user, for oversight, can open a file and start to write (the file is in
> read-only mode), he forgets "get lock" the file, and when he finishes, he
> couldn't write in the file.

I know that some programs actually check if a file is read-only when opening
it and alert the user that they can't edit it. Further, even if you are not
using such a program you can still claim the lock on the file even if you
have already opened it and made changes to it. There, I know at least one
program which still refuses to save to the now-writable file, so you will
have to write to a different file first and then copy it over. All of this is
not a problem but merely an annoyance unless someone changed it before you.

> I want that a user when opens a file (it's with svn:needs-lock property),
> it displays a message saying that the file is read-only and requires "get
> block". This is the only thing which my colleagues do not want to go svn.

You could rebind all relevant file types to some kind of proxy that first
checks if the file is readable before then launching the real editor. I'm not
sure I would like that though, because it means that users who only want to
read a document will then first lock the file even though they don't need it
and of course they will also forget to unlock it afterwards.

I suggest you ask them for a plan where forgetting things does not in any way
cause any inconvenience. I'm pretty sure that no such plan can be made that
is flawless, human errors can't be auto-corrected without severely
restricting educated choice.

> I always say them that each file needs "get lock" for writing in it, but
> they say me that they can forget do it.

What's the difference to the current state that uses VSS?

Uli

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