Re: cvs tag entries in $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/history

[Andrew Johnson]

Larry Jones wrote:
> 
> Andrew Johnson writes:
> >
> > As of version 1.11 "cvs tag" does not make entries in the
> > $CVSROOT/CVSROOT/history file, whereas "cvs rtag" does.
> >
> > Is there a particular reason for this discrepancy, and if not how easy
> > would it be change (or has it already been added in later versions)?
> 
> The obvious reason is that rtag, like most other commands that get
> logged, operates on a module, whereas tag operates on files.  I expect
> that specifying the change would be more work than actually implementing
> it (although it would take a modicum of care to prevent logging both the
> module and files when doing rtag since tag and rtag share the low-level
> code).  Presumably, you'd want to use a record type other than T to
> distinguish tag records from rtag records, and while it would be
> tempting to reassign T to tag and use something else for rtag, it
> probably wouldn't be a good idea for compatibility reasons.  You'd also
> have to decide exactly what you wanted in the tag records.

Most of the information in the history file is file-related, so it would
seem to make some sense for the application of tags to individual files to
be recorded there too.  I'm not likely to actually implement this myself
(I was asked the question by someone else and thought it worth asking, but
don't have a specific requirement myself), but if I did I would make an
entry for each file as it was tagged (in both cvs tag and cvs rtag),
giving the tag name and file version number as well as the usual user,
time/date and path stuff.

Are lower-case letters allowed?  The record type 't' would be good - T
refers to the tag applied to a whole module, and 't' gives specific
information about each file.  A cvs rtag would create one 'T' record and a
't' entry for each file.  This would provide the ability to track the
movement of tags with time.

However I can see the downside: this would add the acquisition of a
central lock to all tagging activities that isn't there at present, and
speed up the growth of the history file (on the assumption that tagging is
more common than commits and updates).  Maybe not...

- Andrew
-- 
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