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RE: windows junction points vs. SVN_67460

From: Bert Huijben <rhuijben_at_sharpsvn.net>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:40:56 +0100

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bob Archer [mailto:bob.archer_at_amsi.com]
> Sent: dinsdag 10 november 2009 17:03
> To: Stefan Sperling
> Cc: Ignacio G. T.; users_at_subversion.tigris.org
> Subject: RE: windows junction points vs. SVN_67460
>
> > On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 10:47:15AM -0500, Bob Archer wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:20:40PM +0100, Ignacio G. T. wrote:
> > > > > El 9 Nov 2009 a las 10:57, thomas menzel escribió:
> > > > >
> > > > > > > Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> > > > > > > Subversion does not support junctions.
> > > > > >
> > > > > > well, ok - if that is the state now.
> > > > > > are you considering this for the future and if not, why
> > not?
> > > > >
> > > > > I'm another happy (future) user of sjunctversion :-)
> > > >
> > > > This is platform specific and should be abstracted away by APR.
> > > > If APR does not support NTFS junctions, Subversion won't
> > either.
> > > > Subversion's support for symlinks on UNIX also depends on APR.
> > > >
> > > > Stefan
> > >
> > > Do you know if apr hence svn supports symlinks on Windows?
> >
> > I don't know.
> > Isn't an NTFS junction the closest equivalent to a symlink on
> > Windows?
>
> Yes and no. Starting with Windows Vista symlinks are supported via the
> mklink command.
>
> > I don't know if APR supports NTFS junctions, just pointing out that
> > it is a prerequisite for such support in Subversion. If APR does
> > not
> > support NTFS junctions yet, people should advocate for this support
> > to be added to APR (or better even create the necessary patches...)
> > If APR already supports NTFS junctions and this support is not used
> > by
> > Subversion, we should at least open a corresponding issue in
> > Subversion's
> > issue tracker if none exists yet.
>
> Sounds like it would be worth exploring. (no pun intended)

When you create a symbolic link on Windows you have to pass whether the link will point to a directory or to a file.
( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363866(VS.85).aspx )

Subversion doesn't have this information and APR can't change its api in a backwards compatible way to ask the library user (=subversion) this information.

Further APR requires the information on whether an OS has symbolic links on compile time, while Windows XP officially doesn't support symlinks yet and requiring Windows Vista or later is not an option yet.

So, currently I don't see how we can implement symbolic links on Windows.. Maybe it can be done for symlinks pointing to files/directories that are in the same working copy.. But even then it could break on a "svn switch".

        Bert

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Received on 2009-11-10 17:41:57 CET

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