Re: Correct options for export

[Eric Siegerman]

On Thu, Jul 12, 2001 at 09:52:42PM +0200, Ingolf Steinbach wrote:
> Are there situations in which a file is added with -kb to a repository
> other than because it is a binary file?

Because the person adding it made a mistake :-)  But the right
way to fix that mistake is to use "cvs admin -k<whatever> file",
not to override the -kb at checkout time.  So this is NOT an
argument against your suggested change.  I for one am all in
favour of it (no commit access, but no lack of an opinion :-)

> Are there situations in which one wants to have such files exported
> with a different keyword expansion?

Not to my knowledge.

> Would it really be such a problem if the -k option were only applied to
> non-binary files during export / checkout / ...?

It might be wise to let people forcibly override -kb.  (I don't
know why they'd want to, but almost certainly someone will
complain if they lose the ability.)  Adding a separate
command-line option, though, would be a bad idea; of the obvious
choices, -f is taken, and although -F is still free in "co",
"update", and "export", it is used in a few other commands, and a
use may someday be found for it in those three.

Better would be to add an "f" suboption to -k:
    - "-kv" would be changed as we're discussing, to say
      "override the stored keyword setting, except for 'b'"
    - "-kvf" would do what "-kv" does now -- always
      overrides the stored setting, even for 'b'
Note that the "f" should NOT be stored in the ,v file; it should
be strictly a modifier to the current "cvs" command.

"cvs admin" should honour this "-kf" suboption too.  This solves
the problem of someone going "cvs admin -kkv ." and recursively
clobbering any binary-file settings in their project.

To my mind, protecting "cvs admin -k" is a much more compelling
reason to add the -kf mechanism than allowing people to forcibly
override -kb at checkout time.

--

|  | /\
|-_|/  >   Eric Siegerman, Toronto, Ont.        address@hidden
|  |  /
With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine. However, this is not
necessarily a good idea.
        - RFC 1925 (quoting an unnamed source)