RE: sparse working directories and externals

Johan,

Thanks for the reply. I looked at the two issues being tracked and they summary my problem fairly well.

Dave Andreas

-----Original Message-----
From: Johan Corveleyn [mailto:jcorvel_at_gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:48 AM
To: Dave Andreas
Cc: users_at_subversion.apache.org
Subject: Re: sparse working directories and externals

On Fri, Jan 28, 2011 at 4:35 PM, Dave Andreas <Dave.Andreas_at_silabs.com> wrote:
> I've encountered a few anomalies regarding the sparse workaareas and
> externals.  I can construct a sparse workarea using either a top down
> approach or a bottoms up approach as shown in the following examples
>
> Top down:
>
> $ svn co -depth immediates <URL> modules
>
> A modules
> A modules/module1
> A modules/module2
> $ svn update -set-depth immediates modules/*
> A modules/module1/subdir1
> A modules/module1/subdir2
> A modules/module2/subdir1
> A modules/module2/subdir2
>
> $svn update -set-depth infinity modules/*/subdir1
>
> A modules/module1/subdir1/file1
> A modules/module2/subdir1/file3
>
>
> Bottoms up:
>
> $svn co <URL> modules
>
> A modules
> A modules/module1
> A modules/module1/subdir1
> A modules/module1/subdir1/file1
> A modules/module2/subdir2
> A modules/module1/subdir2/file2
> A modules/module2
> A moduels/module2/subdir1
> A modules/module2/subdir1/file3
> A modules/module2/subdir2
> A modules/module2/subdir2/file4
> A modules/external1/subdir1
> A modules/external1/subdir1/file5
> A modules/external1/subdir2/
> A modules/external1/subdir2/file6
>
> $svn update -set-depth empty modules/*/subdir2
>
> D modules/module1/subdir2/file2
> D modules/module2/subdir2/file4
> D modules/external1/subdir2/file6
>
>
> If it weren't for the external, the result is the same.  Unfortunately the
> initial checkout of an external appears to be an all or nothing scenario
> requiring a depth of infinity.
>
> The disadvantage of a bottoms up approach is that I'm checking out
> everything from the repository into the workarea and them pruning it back.
> In my actual case, I'm dealing with 10's of thousands of file and this
> process can take nearly 3 hours.
>
> The ideal solution would be a top down approach that handled externals
> identically to modules from the local repository.
>
> Any suggestions?

If I understand correctly, the problem is really at the start of your
explanation, in that:

> Top down:
>
> $ svn co -depth immediates <URL> modules
>
> A modules
> A modules/module1
> A modules/module2

doesn't checkout modules/external1. If that would be the case, it
would probably pan out the way you want, wouldn't it?

I think this is issue #3311:
http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3311 (externals
are not created unless depth=infinity)

I don't know an easy workaround. After your first step (checkout with
depth=immediates), can you "manually" pull in the externals with eg.
"svn update --set-depth=infinity external1"? In that case, maybe you
could script something, using the output of "svn propget
svn:externals" right after the "co --depth=immediates"? That would
still pull in too much of the externals themselves, but maybe it makes
it already a little more manageable ...

Unfortunately, there is no way to limit the depth of pulling in the
external itself, because of another issue:
http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=3216 (externals
with --depth)

Cheers,

-- 
Johan
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