Re: How to keep unix eoln in repository

[Joi Ellis]

On Tue, 14 May 2002, Larry Jones wrote:

> juhas writes:
> > 
> > Despite the fact that our compile & link platform is UNIX, some
> > of our developers edit source files on windows. And they always
> > forget to change win eolns to unix eolns...
> 
> Developers who edit files on Windows should be using a Windows CVS
> client to checkout and commit the files.  The CVS clients are
> responsible for converting between the local text file format and the
> canonical text file format (which just happens to be the same as the
> Unix text file format).

This is a problem when one wants to edit on windows but actually build
and execute the app on unix.  The obvious way of getting the files
back into the unix environment is to commit them to the repository and
then run cvs update on the unix platform before building.

Doing this requires that developers commit untested code into the
repository.  Depending upon the working environment, this may be
forbidden either by policy (pointy-hair whim or developer agreement) or
even by code (commitinfo scripts that do pre-builds, etc.)

Using cvs to handle the eoln is only going to solve the problem for
a small number of users, it isn't a good general solution.  Using cvs
to translate the eolns adds two additional steps to every build process,
and risks creating a repository with untrustworthy code in it.  I don't think
this is a good solution at all, myself.

I believe abandoning Windows editors is the best solution.  At the very
least, invest in a smarter editor for the developers who insist on involving
two different platforms in their development process.

-- 
Joi Ellis                    Software Engineer
Aravox Technologies          address@hidden, address@hidden

No matter what we think of Linux versus FreeBSD, etc., the one thing I
really like about Linux is that it has Microsoft worried.  Anything
that kicks a monopoly in the pants has got to be good for something.
           - Chris Johnson