Re: using files with .xls and .doc in CVS

[Rob Helmer]

On Tue, Feb 12, 2002 at 09:05:29PM -0600, Pierre Asselin wrote:
> Rob Helmer <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> >Why do so many on the list poo-poo using binaries in CVS? 
> 
> Here's an excerpt from my cvswrappers:
>     *.bmp   -k 'b'
>     *.ico   -k 'b'
>     *.lib   -k 'b'
> 
> So I do put binaries in CVS, mostly when I don't have a better place
> to put them.  They tend not to change much.  But .doc files?  yuk.

Ok, I think I see your point : for binaries that change on a very
regular basis, your CVS repository will quickly fill up with big
files that represent minor changes; you are probably better off
making backup copies by hand for important changes ( or using the
internal versioning system ).

However, I must admit that I do use .xls files in a database module,
they represent the base data from the customer before it gets converted 
to SQL ( although we are switching to .xml, and should then be able
to just store XML and do the conversion to SQL at runtime ).

Also, we have a web-based document management system that CVS. It primarily
stores .html files, but is also home to requirements documents ( which
are in the native MS Word format ). These documents do not change
very often, however, and if a new version is checked in then it should
be displayed prominently ( I have a loginfo script that takes the commit
message and displays the filename and the commit msg on the front page ).



Thanks,
Rob Helmer