RE: renaming under CVS

[Matthew Herrmann]

Hi Paul, Noel,

I was thinking about a similar idea to yours. I also thought of another way
to allow renames etc, although it would probably be grossly inefficient
though elegant in its own way:

Store all the directories, files, etc. in a single mergeable text file
format. Then, on commits, the directories are put back into this text file
which is commited. On update, the existing files are merged into a text file
then a normal update is performed. Then, from that file, the individual
files are broken out.

Ads:
- Metadata can be stored, file location etc. handling renames
- Revision numbers are unique and can become useful (like give me a diff
versus the last checkin)
- Commits are atomic
- Branching etc. is trivial, don't have to worry about "oh i lost that file"
etc.
- Diffs between two tags work better because the revision numbers are
incremented every time a change is made in the project

Disads:
- slow (i'm guessing cvs is optimised to work on lots of smallish files)
- concurrent dev is slowed by requiring a cvs update on basically every
commit, not just when you have changed the same file as someone else.
- it kind of undoes the point of cvs

Just thought i'd throw that in -- the disadvantages most likely render it
impractical, however.

Regards,

Matthew Herrmann
--------------------------------------
Far Edge Technology
Level 11, 80 Mount St
North Sydney NSW 2060
Australia

Ph: 02 9955 3640
Mob: 0404 852 537