how can I use svn for backups of complete directory hierarchies?

["R. Welz" <r_...@gmx.de>]

Hello.
Well can I? :)

Yesterday I experimented with svn becourse I am searching for a 
possibility to make versioned backups of my home directory (well, under 
Mac OS X). And here is the problem. svn add complains about Umlaute, 
and decided to leave a .svn directory well, just everywhere, even 
inside every Application (inside the bundle, which technically is a 
directory).

To make the matter short, I am just searching how to delete all these 
(masses) :)

So what can I do to archieve my aim? I want to commit each file type, 
files and dirs with a prefixed dot (and would be glad to even archive 
resource forks).

To emphasize my wishes I will tell in a few words why.

I have a custumer (well one I am helping with his computer and earning 
a few Euros) who is a old, sick (ill) by brain desease und heart 
attack, not handicapted but restricted and he tends to delete a lot of 
things by accident. Emails from his inbox, letters, and so on. No file 
is really safe :(

I am experienced in perl and I could write a script for a cron job 
commiting every changed document (I am quite shure that svn does this 
part for me) every 15 minutes. I am shure I will be able do even delete 
parts of the revisions which reached a certain age to keep the 
repository as small as desired.

Is it technically possible to do this, I mean I don't want to start 
scripting if svn cannot commit resource forks or files with dot or 
certain binary file types (and of course Umlaute).

Any Ideas greatly welcome.

Greetings,
Robert Welz


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Re: how can I use svn for backups of complete directory hierarchies?

[Jack Repenning <jr...@collab.net>]

At 12:40 AM +0200 9/7/03, R. Welz wrote:

>Yesterday I experimented with svn becourse I am searching for a 
>possibility to make versioned backups of my home directory (well, 
>under Mac OS X). And here is the problem. svn add complains about 
>Umlaute, and decided to leave a .svn directory well, just 
>everywhere, even inside every Application (inside the bundle, which 
>technically is a directory).

Sadly, SVN does not deal with the Mac OS idiosyncracies, like bundles 
or with the resource forks of a HFS+ file.

As you've noticed for the bundles, it spatters .svn/ directories 
throughout them.  This might actually be OK; sometimes the magic 
works, sometimes it doesn't.  In particular, if you are a developer 
who often generates new bundles, you're gonna lose.  Exactly how you 
lose depends on the tools you use; some choke on that .svn directory, 
while others wipe the whole bundle (including the .svn directories) 
and create a new bundle (without the .svn directories).

For the resource forks ("file/rsrc"), it's even worse: SVN just 
simply will not find or version these.  In this, it's like most other 
Unix tools in the OS X world -- tar or cp will also miss them.

>
>To make the matter short, I am just searching how to delete all 
>these (masses) :)

That's easy: open a Terminal window and type this or some variation 
you prefer (if this command is unfamiliar to you, use "man find" and 
"man xargs" and "man rm" to study and approve what it does before 
using it):
	find . -type d -name .svn -print0 | xargs -0t rm -rf

>So what can I do to archieve my aim? I want to commit each file 
>type, files and dirs with a prefixed dot (and would be glad to even 
>archive resource forks).

Well, if you have resource forks in the data, you darned well *must* 
include them in the archive!

>I am experienced in perl and I could write a script for a cron job 
>commiting every changed document (I am quite shure that svn does 
>this part for me) every 15 minutes.

In order to get the Macintosh-specific bits right (bundles, resource 
forks, desktop database flags), you'll need to use something 
MacOS-aware, and SVN just plain isn't.  Nor is Perl, actually.

At the level of Perl scripting, there's AppleScript: you could make a 
"Login Item" AppleScript to copy the whole tree periodically.  Or, 
you could use an explicit back-up program; I don't know of any 
freeware ones, but there are several good commercial ones.

Or, you could use one of those "undelete" utilities, that allow you 
to find files after they've been deleted, such as Norton Utilities 
(or Norton SystemWorks, which includes Norton Utilities and 
Retrospect Express Backup, as well as AntiVirus and Spring Cleaning). 
Undelete would be lower overhead for you, which would be important 
since you want quite frequent copies made.  The flip side is that 
undelete is quite invasive; if you upgrade the OS on the computer, 
you need to check whether an upgrade is also needed for the 
undeleter.  Since Macs now come with automatic Software Update for 
the OS, this could result in surprises.

Disclaimer: I do not presently use any of these tools or techniques. 
I have in the past used Norton Utilities extensively; the only 
problems I've had were compatibility problems between a given OS and 
a given NU.  Butt it has often been the case that I was one of the 
many who discovered the incompatibility by upgrading the OS, 
encountering problems, and waiting a long time until Norton/Symantec 
made their matching update available.


-- 
-==-
Jack Repenning
CollabNet, Inc.
8000 Marina Boulevard, Suite 600
Brisbane, California 94005
o: 650.228.2562
c: 408.835-8090

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