Re: binaries and the -kb option

[Kaz Kylheku]

On Wed, 30 Apr 2003, Richard Pfeiffer wrote:

> Hello, 
> 
> trying to do an import of a project that contain
> binaries.  I of course don't want the keyword
> expansion turned off for the text files so I'm
> wondering how I go about importing a project with
> both binaries and text?  

One way is to use a more intelligent version control system like
Meta-CVS which gathers all the file types (by suffix), and lets you
edit a specification of what keyword expansion mode you want for each
type, or whether you want to ignore files of that type, and then
generates a ``cvs import'' command line with all the right options.

> Do I do the import and let the binaries fail and
> then import (or I guess I couldn't import again,

They won't fail; they will just be imported as text files.

> I'd have to 'add', correct?) the binaries one at
> a time?
> 
> Using the UNIX command line form for this.

If you are on UNIX, then you are in luck because binaries and text
files are the same. What you can do is just import everything as text,
check it all out, and then use ``cvs admin'' to adjust the expansion
mode of the binary files to -kb. This will work because CVS on UNIX
will not do any line-ending munging on the binary files; they will be
stored properly, just with the -kb mode missing. 

That missing -kb mode has two effects: firstly, the binaries will
check out incorrectly on oeprating systems that represent text files
differently from CVS, and secondly, CVS will perform merging on these
files as though they were text, which will almost certainly result in
garbage. None of these situations will happen if you put in the -kb
before letting other people know that you have created the project.