metadata versioning

[Molle Bestefich <mo...@gmail.com>]

Hope I'm not repeating questions asked in the past.

Now that the next major release will (probably?) do versioning of all
kinds of fancy metadata, I was wondering:

Will there be versioning of the 'log message' and 'author' properties,
so that they can be changed post-commit without resorting to a
custom-built hook mechanism trying to do it's own sort-of-versioning
(whatever)?

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Re: metadata versioning

[kf...@collab.net]

Molle Bestefich <mo...@gmail.com> writes:
> Hope I'm not repeating questions asked in the past.
> 
> Now that the next major release will (probably?) do versioning of all
> kinds of fancy metadata, I was wondering:

If you're thinking that Subversion 1.2.0 will do this, that is false.
This feature will not be in 1.2.

> Will there be versioning of the 'log message' and 'author' properties,
> so that they can be changed post-commit without resorting to a
> custom-built hook mechanism trying to do it's own sort-of-versioning
> (whatever)?

I'm not sure why you think they can't be changed post-commit.  They
can be; this has been in Subversion forever.

As for *versioning* the svn:author and svn:log revision properties,
that's a different question.  That feature also will not be in 1.2.

-Karl



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Re: metadata versioning

[Molle Bestefich <mo...@gmail.com>]

kfogel wrote:
> If you're thinking that Subversion 1.2.0 will do this, that is false.
> This feature will not be in 1.2.

> I'm not sure why you think they can't be changed post-commit.

Apparently I'm just bad at expressing myself.  I know they can be.

I was wondering if versioning of these properties would be added in
1.2, which would sort of be a sign to all the people developing svn
frontends that this is now a feature that it's OK to use and that it
can generally be included in a visible way in the clients since it
doesn't require tweaking of the server to make it work.

> That feature also will not be in 1.2.

Ok, thanks for clearing that up.

Ben Collins-Sussman wrote:
> I think you're quite confused.

It's a personality "feature".

[ ... snipped 1-5 ... ]
Thank you very much for clearing this up for me!

> 4.  The "pre-revprop-change-hook" is nothing but a safeguard.  Changing
> the unversioned metadata is a lossy operation, so it's turned off by
> default.  If you tweak the pre-revprop-change-hook to always return
> success, then nothing more need be done.  It's not the hook changing
> the data;  it's the client.  The hook is just a potential blocker of
> the operation, nothing more.

I'm not *that* confused, I definitely had this one figured out ;-).

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Re: metadata versioning

[Ben Collins-Sussman <su...@collab.net>]

On Mar 8, 2005, at 4:22 PM, Molle Bestefich wrote:

> John Peacock wrote:
>> Molle Bestefich wrote:
>>> Will there be versioning of the 'log message' and 'author' 
>>> properties,
>>> so that they can be changed post-commit without resorting to a
>>> custom-built hook mechanism trying to do it's own sort-of-versioning
>>> (whatever)?
>>
>> It may be more profitable to describe *what* you intend to accomplish 
>> rather
>> than *how* you want to accomplish it.  For example, what part of log 
>> and author
>> being revprops is a problem for what you want to do?  What do you 
>> want your
>> post-commit hook to be doing?
>
> It's not a post-commit hook, it's a pre-revprop-change hook.
> I meant "post commit" as in "editing/changing a log message or author
> field at a point in time after the original commit has been done".
>
> I guess that what I'd like to accomplish is that I'd like to save
> Subversion users the time and effort they spend implementing custom
> hooks by having a general and standardized solution.  I uttered
> elsewhere that since metadata is versioned in the next upcoming major
> release of Subversion, changing log messages and authors on past
> commits wouldn't need a pre-revprop-change hook, but then I got a
> doubt and came here to check.
>

I think you're quite confused.

1.  Metadata attached to files and directories ("properties") has 
always been versioned in Subversion.

2.  Metadata attached to revisions (authors, log messages, dates) have 
always been unversioned.

3.  Users have always been able to edit either type of metadata from 
their clients.

4.  The "pre-revprop-change-hook" is nothing but a safeguard.  Changing 
the unversioned metadata is a lossy operation, so it's turned off by 
default.  If you tweak the pre-revprop-change-hook to always return 
success, then nothing more need be done.  It's not the hook changing 
the data;  it's the client.  The hook is just a potential blocker of 
the operation, nothing more.

5.  The next release of subversion (1.2) adds "locking" support -- that 
is, the ability to lock a file in the repository, preventing anyone 
from changing it but you.



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Re: metadata versioning

[Molle Bestefich <mo...@gmail.com>]

John Peacock wrote:
> Molle Bestefich wrote:
>> Will there be versioning of the 'log message' and 'author' properties,
>> so that they can be changed post-commit without resorting to a
>> custom-built hook mechanism trying to do it's own sort-of-versioning
>> (whatever)?
> 
> It may be more profitable to describe *what* you intend to accomplish rather
> than *how* you want to accomplish it.  For example, what part of log and author
> being revprops is a problem for what you want to do?  What do you want your
> post-commit hook to be doing?

It's not a post-commit hook, it's a pre-revprop-change hook.
I meant "post commit" as in "editing/changing a log message or author
field at a point in time after the original commit has been done".

I guess that what I'd like to accomplish is that I'd like to save
Subversion users the time and effort they spend implementing custom
hooks by having a general and standardized solution.  I uttered
elsewhere that since metadata is versioned in the next upcoming major
release of Subversion, changing log messages and authors on past
commits wouldn't need a pre-revprop-change hook, but then I got a
doubt and came here to check.

I'm not trying to accomplish anything particularly fancy.  In fact,
it's a rather simple stunt, and the procedures involved is
well-documented.  I was just trying to find out if I was correct when
I mentioned elsewhere that commit messages and the author field will
be versioned in the next major release or not :-).

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Re: metadata versioning

[John Peacock <jp...@rowman.com>]

Molle Bestefich wrote:
> Will there be versioning of the 'log message' and 'author' properties,
> so that they can be changed post-commit without resorting to a
> custom-built hook mechanism trying to do it's own sort-of-versioning
> (whatever)?

It may be more profitable to describe *what* you intend to accomplish rather 
than *how* you want to accomplish it.  For example, what part of log and author 
being revprops is a problem for what you want to do?  What do you want your 
post-commit hook to be doing?

John

-- 
John Peacock
Director of Information Research and Technology
Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
4720 Boston Way
Lanham, MD 20706
301-459-3366 x.5010
fax 301-429-5747

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