What happens when revision numbers are not chronological?

[Alexander Shenkin <su...@shenkin.org>]

Hi Folks,

I've used an import script to import two bunches of files in the same
repository.  This import script sets the commit time of each file
(svn:date property) to the original modified-time of the file.  So, when
I added the second batch of files, the dates associated with the
revision numbers are no longer chronological.  That is, rev 5 might have
an svn:date of 1/1/2011, and rev 6 might have an svn:date of 1/1/2010
for example.

I'm not planning on doing anything overly complex with svn - i probably
won't be branching or merging.  However, I would like to be a little
more educated about the risks that I am running.  Anyone know?

thanks!

Re: What happens when revision numbers are not chronological?

[Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 11:06:19AM -0500, Alexander Shenkin wrote:
> Hi Folks,
> 
> I've used an import script to import two bunches of files in the same
> repository.  This import script sets the commit time of each file
> (svn:date property) to the original modified-time of the file.  So, when
> I added the second batch of files, the dates associated with the
> revision numbers are no longer chronological.  That is, rev 5 might have
> an svn:date of 1/1/2011, and rev 6 might have an svn:date of 1/1/2010
> for example.
> 
> I'm not planning on doing anything overly complex with svn - i probably
> won't be branching or merging.  However, I would like to be a little
> more educated about the risks that I am running.  Anyone know?
> 
> thanks!

See the warning at the bottom of this page:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.7/svn.tour.revs.specifiers.html#svn.tour.revs.dates

Basically, you are confusing the binary search algorithm that is
invoked when you pass a date argument to the -r option. Other than
that, there is no harm.

Re: What happens when revision numbers are not chronological?

[Alexander Shenkin <su...@shenkin.org>]

thanks all for your helpful replies.

On 1/30/2012 1:13 PM, Ryan Schmidt wrote:
> On Jan 30, 2012, at 10:06, Alexander Shenkin wrote:
>
>> I've used an import script to import two bunches of files in the same
>> repository.  This import script sets the commit time of each file
>> (svn:date property) to the original modified-time of the file.  So, when
>> I added the second batch of files, the dates associated with the
>> revision numbers are no longer chronological.  That is, rev 5 might have
>> an svn:date of 1/1/2011, and rev 6 might have an svn:date of 1/1/2010
>> for example.
>>
>> I'm not planning on doing anything overly complex with svn - i probably
>> won't be branching or merging.  However, I would like to be a little
>> more educated about the risks that I am running.  Anyone know?
> You will not be able to use the date syntax to specify revisions. For example:
>
> svn log -r '{2012-01-01}:{2012-01-11}'
>
> This is not guaranteed to return sensible results if your revisions are not in ascending chronological order. I'm not sure what it will do, but I wouldn't be surprised if it returned revisions outside the requested range, and/or did not return the revisions that are in the requested range. If I remember correctly, the Subversion repository of the Apache Software Foundation has non-chronological revisions, so you could do some tests against their repository if you're curious.
>
> But that's the only problem I know of.
>
>
>

Re: What happens when revision numbers are not chronological?

[Ryan Schmidt <su...@ryandesign.com>]

On Jan 30, 2012, at 10:06, Alexander Shenkin wrote:

> I've used an import script to import two bunches of files in the same
> repository.  This import script sets the commit time of each file
> (svn:date property) to the original modified-time of the file.  So, when
> I added the second batch of files, the dates associated with the
> revision numbers are no longer chronological.  That is, rev 5 might have
> an svn:date of 1/1/2011, and rev 6 might have an svn:date of 1/1/2010
> for example.
> 
> I'm not planning on doing anything overly complex with svn - i probably
> won't be branching or merging.  However, I would like to be a little
> more educated about the risks that I am running.  Anyone know?

You will not be able to use the date syntax to specify revisions. For example:

svn log -r '{2012-01-01}:{2012-01-11}'

This is not guaranteed to return sensible results if your revisions are not in ascending chronological order. I'm not sure what it will do, but I wouldn't be surprised if it returned revisions outside the requested range, and/or did not return the revisions that are in the requested range. If I remember correctly, the Subversion repository of the Apache Software Foundation has non-chronological revisions, so you could do some tests against their repository if you're curious.

But that's the only problem I know of.