RE: Recover a working copy

[Jim.Hyslop]

Robert D. Young wrote:
> It's actually to see the copy forensically as it appeared on 
> the original
> system.
Can you elaborate on this a little? Why are you doing this? Big-picture
explanation, not the details.

I have found that many of the requests for help for exotic features like
this can be resolved much more easily using different techniques - but in
order to suggest those techniques, we have to know what you are trying to
accomplish.

Picture the following conversation. You get a phone call from a friend, who
asks if he can borrow some power tools. "Why?" you ask. "I need to cut a
hole in my front door." What your friend hasn't told you, is that he broke
his key in the lock, and wants to cut the hole in the door so he can reach
inside to unlock the door. If you knew that, you could say "What happened to
the key to your side door that you hid in your garage?"

So far, you've just asked for power tools.

> For example, if the original programmer referred to 
> it as 2.7, I'd
> like to see that. 
The original programmer - indeed, anybody using CVS - should never refer to
"2.7". We should refer to "tag ProjectName_v2_3_build44". To you and me, a
revision number should be treated as a "magic number" that only CVS knows
about, understands, and manipulates.

> I'm just curious if it can be done, one-time or not.
Well, it can be done, but I'm not going let you cut a hole in your front
door until I know that your side-door key isn't available ;-)

-- 
Jim Hyslop
Senior Software Designer
Leitch Technology International Inc. (http://www.leitch.com)
Columnist, C/C++ Users Journal (http://www.cuj.com/experts)