svn:auto-props: property specified in a parent dir but not specified in a subdir (was: Re: Cannot add files due to hierarchical RDC svn:auto-props when matching rules merge properties between text and binary file types)

[Daniel Shahaf <d....@daniel.shahaf.name>]

[ moving to dev@; please reply to dev@ only ]

Johan Corveleyn wrote on Sat, Oct 15, 2016 at 22:59:28 +0200:
> C:\autoprops\wc\trunk\dir>svn pg svn:auto-props --show-inherited-props
> C:\autoprops\wc - *.txt = svn:eol-style=native
> 
> C:\autoprops\wc\trunk - *.txt = svn:mime-type=application/octet-stream
> 
> 
> C:\autoprops\wc\trunk\dir>echo test>test.txt
> 
> C:\autoprops\wc\trunk\dir>svn add test.txt
> svn: E200009: Can't set 'svn:eol-style': file
> 'C:\autoprops\wc\trunk\dir\test.txt' has binary mime type property

Let's take the the special interaction of svn:eol-tyle and non-texty
svn:mime-type out of the picture; I'll reply on the assumption that the
parent dir had �*.txt = k1=v1� and the subdir had �*.txt = k2=v2�.

I'm not entirely sure what's the expected behaviour here; that is:
whether the k1 property being present in the overridden *.txt entry but
absent from the overriding *.txt entry should mean (a)�that the k1
setting from the parent (overridden) entry is to be applied, or (b)�that
k1 property is not to be auto-set.

You referenced the 1.8 release notes�, which reference the wiki design doc,
which uses the term "conflicts" without defining it.  Interpretation�(a)
makes sense if patterns "conflict" when they define different values for
any one property; interpretation�(b) makes sense if patterns "conflict"
when they define different unordered lists of (propname, propvalue) pairs.

autoprops_tests.py does not enlighten the ambiguity.

Cheers,

Daniel

� https://subversion.apache.org/docs/release-notes/1.8.html#repos-dictated-config