Submission for /contrib for a script that can version control filesystems

[Ross Mark <ro...@controllingedge.com.au>]

Last year I wrote a script for using subversion to version control 
entire filesystems including symlinks, devices, ownership and 
permissions of files and directories. Originally had posted it to the 
mailing list and asked to do so again yesterday on the users@ list where 
Sander pointed out that I was missing the licensing and also preferred 
it come on the dev@ list. So here it is. I'm releasing it under GPL as a 
number of the files in /contrib were already using this.

For a quick explanation this script is used as a replacement for svn. 
All arguments will be passed directly to the svn program. Depending on 
what the command is, commit, checkout, switch or update, the script will 
perform some pre or post processing of the working copy. SVN properties 
a used to record symlinks, devices and permissions with ownership. On 
checkin the script scans the working copy or any changes and updates the 
appropriate property prior to calling svn. On a checkout, switch or 
update, after calling svn the script checks the property entries on each 
file and directory and updates the working copy as appropriate. As 
symlinks and devices are identified they are automatically added into 
the svn:ignore property.

The names of properties used can be easily changed by updating the 
variables in the start of the asvn script. I'm not aware of any standard 
being proposed for how properties should be named. Currently I use 
"dir:symlinks", dir:devices" and "file:permissions". I am happy for the 
script to be changed to use the asvn name space so they are associated 
with the script or a different name space that is more generic if other 
tools want to access them.

 I have only run the script on Red Hat 7 and 8 systems so there may be 
some portability issues as I do parse the output of many system commands 
when inspecting the working copy.

I'll be the first to admit that the script is not the most polished and 
possibly a perl script would do the job better but it appears to work so 
I'm happy.

If there is something else that is required to do in order to get this 
added to the contrib section please let me know and I'll endeavor to do 
so.  Since originally posting the script to the mailing list last year I 
have had a few inquiries about it so I believe including it as part of 
the archive would be of benefit to others.

Cheers

Ross