RE: merge mode for XML

[Greg A. Woods]

[ On Monday, May 6, 2002 at 07:58:09 (-0500), Sean Hager wrote: ]
> Subject: RE: merge mode for XML
>
> 
> Actually pattern matching would put the users at the mercy
>  of CVS more then extension ( really I mean wild card )
>  matching.

Wildcard matching *is* pattern matching!

Unless you mean "regular expressions" when you say "pattern".....

>  Pattern matching could be very unreliable and
>  produce different results based on the content of the
>  document per version, when the format per version has not
>  changed.

Ah, you're talking about some form of pattern matching on the
content as opposed to filename matching.....

Content matching is actually at hell of a lot more reliable than
filename matching.  After all it's the content type we're trying to
determine, not some mythical file naming convention!

PLEASE look at the sources of, and references to, the file(1) command.
(eg. including the Apache mod_mime_magic content identification module)

>  Wild card matching puts the users in the drivers
>  seat.  You can control how CVS will work with your files
>  with naming conventions.  I think programmers
>  are smart enough to follow naming conventions, and
>  understand the consequences of breaking the conventions.

No matter what the matching technology, nor whether it matches against
the filename or the file content, it's still got to be used _only_ as an
initial guess as to the file content type.  Every revision's deltatext
should contain the file type in a newphrase (this is simpler than trying
to track resurrections against branches, etc.).  It must also be
possible to set and reset the file type for any given revision(s) in
order to correct any initial matching failures.

-- 
                                                                Greg A. Woods

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