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Posted to users@subversion.apache.org by Olivier Sannier <ob...@free.fr> on 2005/06/08 18:59:13 UTC

Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Hi all

I've posted a while ago about the fact that I would like to be able to 
get rid of the "duplicate" copy of all my files that can be found in 
.svn/text-base/
This request has been discussed here and there a number of times, and 
after having been using SVN on real projects for a while, I must say 
that I have mixed feelings about this.
The good thing is that a number of operations require no network at all, 
diff being the most important one in my case.
The bad thing is that it's a hard drive killer, because source files are 
usually small and under the cluster size (FAT or NTFS filesystem, I'm 
under Windows).

Thing is, I'm more and more in favor of keeping the text-base version, 
but I would like it to have a smaller impact on the filesystem. I 
haven't had a look at the svn client code, but I was wondering if it 
would be at all possible to simply compress (zip, gzip, or simple tar?) 
the content of that folder. One big file with everything in it, instead 
of a whole lot of separate files. Basically, the compression would be 
"hooked" in the middle of the process, being somewhat transparent to the 
other APIs.
Sure, there is an additional load and delay induced from this, but I 
think it would be hardly noticeable for an everyday use.

Does this sound at all feasible?

Cheers
Olivier

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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Olivier Sannier <ob...@free.fr>.
Carsten Koch wrote:

> I believe efficient storage of data is the job of the file system,
> not the job of each and every single application.
> Reiserfs for example is doing that extremely well,
> is a good file system like reiserfs not available under Windows?

No. It's either NTFS or FAT, and they both have this problem. But ext2/3
have a similar issue by the way. And yes, the file system should cope
with that, but 99% of the persons in the world won't just change their
filesystem.

> Even if subversion would compress the "duplicate" copies in 
> .svn/text-base,
> you would still have the normal files in your working copy that should
> cause the exact same problem under a poor file system, which again
> indicates that the problem should be solved on file system level,
> not on application level.

Yes, but what's the point of wasting resources on barely used files?
That's what I'm trying to explain here.

> Also, a 160GB disk costs 62 Euros here in Europe. At that price, I find
> it hard to justify the performance penalty just to save a few GB. 

That's not the point really. It takes a lot of time to create so many
small files, and they are barely used. Creating a big file is much more
efficient, as it turns out. Plus not everyone lives in the "western"
world. Lots of users still care for every meg on their disks.

Cheers
Olivier

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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Carsten Koch <Ca...@icem.com>.
Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> On 2005-06-08 21:44:25 +0200, Carsten Koch wrote:
>>Also, a 160GB disk costs 62 Euros here in Europe. At that price, I find
>>it hard to justify the performance penalty just to save a few GB.
> 
> Would it fit in the CF slot of my Zaurus? :)

Soon. ;-)
Let's see. I guess we are at 6GB right now for CF-compatible microdrives?
According to Moore's law, in about 6 to 7 years, you should have 160GB
for in the CF slot of your Zaurus.

Carsten.

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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Vincent Lefevre <vi...@vinc17.org>.
On 2005-06-08 21:44:25 +0200, Carsten Koch wrote:
> Also, a 160GB disk costs 62 Euros here in Europe. At that price, I find
> it hard to justify the performance penalty just to save a few GB.

Would it fit in the CF slot of my Zaurus? :)

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vi...@vinc17.org> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / SPACES project at LORIA

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Re: hotcopy failing

Posted by Jim <ji...@clickculture.com>.
Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> Are you sure you need to do a hotcopy? I am still under the  impression 
> that a hotcopy is never necessary for an FSFS repository.  See this thread:
> 
> http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2005-07/0102.shtml

Thanks for that pointer!

I think I'm going to start over with this repo at home.  I'm hesitant to 
do much with it with this strange error.  None of the repos I have at 
work exhibit that behavior and it's a similar setup (WinXP, svn 1.2, etc).

It sounds like I can schedule my backups in the evening when there is no 
svn traffic and just backup the repo itself...

Jim


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Re: hotcopy failing

Posted by Ryan Schmidt <su...@ryandesign.com>.
On 02.07.2005, at 02:29, Jim wrote:

> I setup a repo using the FSFS file system. I can checkout/commit, etc,
> with no problems. Tonight I tried to run a svnadmin hotcopy and it  
> fails:
>
> svnadmin hotcopy d:\repos\myproject d:\backup
> svn: Can't copy 'd:/repos/myproject/db/DB_CONFIG' to
> 'd:/backup/db/DB_CONFIG.tmp': The
>  system cannot find the file specified.

I've never used hotcopy, so maybe there's something I don't know. But  
the error message looks strange to me, since there is no file  
DB_CONFIG in my FSFS repository's db directory.

Is d:\repos a folder containing many repositories, or is it itself  
the repository? (IOW, is d:\repos\myproject a repository, or a path  
within a repository?) If the former, then your syntax should be ok,  
but if the latter, you should be backing up the whole repository:

svnadmin hotcopy d:\repos d:\backup

Are you sure you need to do a hotcopy? I am still under the  
impression that a hotcopy is never necessary for an FSFS repository.  
See this thread:

http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2005-07/0102.shtml



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hotcopy failing

Posted by Jim <ji...@clickculture.com>.
I setup a repo using the FSFS file system. I can checkout/commit, etc,
with no problems. Tonight I tried to run a svnadmin hotcopy and it fails:

svnadmin hotcopy d:\repos\myproject d:\backup
svn: Can't copy 'd:/repos/myproject/db/DB_CONFIG' to
'd:/backup/db/DB_CONFIG.tmp': The
  system cannot find the file specified.

Any ideas??

Jim



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hotcopy failing

Posted by ClickCulture <ji...@clickculture.com>.
I setup a repo using the FSFS file system. I can checkout/commit, etc, 
with no problems. Tonight I tried to run a svnadmin hotcopy and it fails:

svnadmin hotcopy d:\repos\myproject d:\backup
svn: Can't copy 'd:/repos/myproject/db/DB_CONFIG' to 
'd:/backup/db/DB_CONFIG.tmp': The
  system cannot find the file specified.

Any ideas??

Jim


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hotcopy failing

Posted by Jim <ji...@clickculture.com>.
I setup a repo using the FSFS file system. I can checkout/commit, etc,
with no problems. Tonight I tried to run a svnadmin hotcopy and it fails:

svnadmin hotcopy d:\repos\myproject d:\backup
svn: Can't copy 'd:/repos/myproject/db/DB_CONFIG' to
'd:/backup/db/DB_CONFIG.tmp': The
  system cannot find the file specified.

Any ideas??

Jim



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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Nicolas Goutte <ni...@snafu.de>.
On Wednesday 08 June 2005 21:44, Carsten Koch wrote:
> Olivier Sannier wrote:
(...)

> Also, a 160GB disk costs 62 Euros here in Europe. At that price, I find
> it hard to justify the performance penalty just to save a few GB.

Just to make the things relative:
- Europe is not the world
- 62 Euro can be a lot of money

Have a nice day!

>
>
> Carsten.
>
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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Carsten Koch <Ca...@icem.com>.
Olivier Sannier wrote:
...
> The bad thing is that it's a hard drive killer, because source files are 
> usually small and under the cluster size (FAT or NTFS filesystem, I'm 
> under Windows).
...
> One big file with everything in it, instead 
> of a whole lot of separate files. Basically, the compression would be 
> "hooked" in the middle of the process, being somewhat transparent to the 
> other APIs.
> Sure, there is an additional load and delay induced from this, but I 
> think it would be hardly noticeable for an everyday use.

I believe efficient storage of data is the job of the file system,
not the job of each and every single application.
Reiserfs for example is doing that extremely well,
is a good file system like reiserfs not available under Windows?

Even if subversion would compress the "duplicate" copies in .svn/text-base,
you would still have the normal files in your working copy that should
cause the exact same problem under a poor file system, which again
indicates that the problem should be solved on file system level,
not on application level.

Also, a 160GB disk costs 62 Euros here in Europe. At that price, I find
it hard to justify the performance penalty just to save a few GB.


Carsten.

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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Ben Collins-Sussman <su...@collab.net>.
On Jun 9, 2005, at 1:50 AM, Olivier Sannier wrote:
>
> Fine, I voted for it, but how do I comment on it to "revive" it  
> from the grave?
> It's marked as "post 1.0", we're at 1.2 and still nothing. I  
> understand that developpers work on what they feel like doing (I do  
> the same) but any indication would be welcome.


Request the 'observer' role on the subversion project, so that you  
can append to issues.


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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Olivier Sannier <ob...@free.fr>.
Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:

>
> On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Olivier Sannier wrote:
>
>>
>> Does this sound at all feasible?
>>
>
> Old enhancement issue:
>
>     http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=908 

Fine, I voted for it, but how do I comment on it to "revive" it from the 
grave?
It's marked as "post 1.0", we're at 1.2 and still nothing. I understand 
that developpers work on what they feel like doing (I do the same) but 
any indication would be welcome.

Cheers
Olivier

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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Ben Collins-Sussman <su...@collab.net>.
On Jun 8, 2005, at 11:59 AM, Olivier Sannier wrote:

>
> Does this sound at all feasible?
>

Old enhancement issue:

     http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=908



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Re: Some thoughts about .svn/text-base/

Posted by Scott Palmer <sc...@2connected.org>.
On Jun 8, 2005, at 2:59 PM, Olivier Sannier wrote:

> ...
> Thing is, I'm more and more in favor of keeping the text-base  
> version, but I would like it to have a smaller impact on the  
> filesystem. I haven't had a look at the svn client code, but I was  
> wondering if it would be at all possible to simply compress (zip,  
> gzip, or simple tar?) the content of that folder. One big file with  
> everything in it, instead of a whole lot of separate files.  
> Basically, the compression would be "hooked" in the middle of the  
> process, being somewhat transparent to the other APIs.
> Sure, there is an additional load and delay induced from this, but  
> I think it would be hardly noticeable for an everyday use.
>
> Does this sound at all feasible?

It seems like a reasonable suggestion to me. In the mean time, maybe  
using NTFS' compressed folders would help?  Just make all the .svn  
folders compressed and they should stay that way.

Scott

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