Re: line endings in text files and -kb

[Ittay Dror]

Todd Denniston wrote:
> Ittay Dror wrote, On 09/11/2008 12:14 PM:
> > Larry Jones wrote:
> > > Ittay Dror writes:
> > >  
> > > >  
> > > > well, i created a file named test.sh, marked it as -kb, made some 
> > > > changes
> > > > and commits and on the server side, test.sh,v appeared to have each 
> > > > commit
> > > > as the full file, not a diff.     
> > >
> > > Like I said, diff doesn't usually work very well on binary files.
> > >   
> > like i said, the file is a text file, it is just marked with -kb so 
> > cvs will not modify line endings.
>
> On windows, are you using cvs under cygwin or CVSNT?
turtoise cvs
> If under cygwin, then is the text file in a cygwin text or binary mount?
not sure what you mean
> [answering these questions will help everyone get you the correct 
> answers, i.e, they matter to the subject area you are asking about.]
>
> BTW if you are collaborating with other windows users, are any of them 
> using the other product or using cygwin mounts differently?
>
>
> > >  
> > > > and if my file is not binary (test.sh), but is marked as -kb, will 
> > > > CVS try
> > > > to merge it?     
> > >
> > > CVS has no way to know whether your file is "really" binary or not 
> > > -- if
> > > you tell CVS it's a binary file, then it will be treated as a binary
> > > file and will not merge it.
> > >   
> > yes, but why can't i just say: "don't modify line endings" without 
> > meaning the file is binary?
>
> what is your intentions of "don't modify line endings"?
>
> windows programs interpret text files different than Unix programs 
> interpret text files, and cvs knows how and when to do the translation 
> of text files, that it has not been told are binary.  Usually folks 
> WANT the translation, that is why good ftp clients let you tell them 
> you are transferring text files so that the client and server can 
> negotiate any needed translation.
ok, but in this case i'm not editing the file, i'm just moving it around 
to create a product tree. someone else edited it and committed and the 
build just so happens to run on windows. also, afaik, most windows ides 
(outside of notepad) know how to handle just \n today.
> > >  
> > > > i don't. i want to prevent CVS from converting line endings. the 
> > > > file is
> > > > checked out in windows but is later used in linux (it is part of a 
> > > > product
> > > > build), but because CVS converts line endings, i get a 
> > > > '/bin/bash^M: bad
> > > > interpreter error'
> > > >     
> > >
> > > That's not CVS's fault.  If you want to use the file on Linux, you
> > >   
> > oh, it is, because cvs decided to change the file without giving me a 
> > reasonable way to tell it not to.
>
> Quite the opposite, YOU told cvs (via -kb) not to change the file, and 
> it obeyed, i.e., you added the file with -kb and then committed it 
> from MS, and on MS the file contained "/bin/bash^M", and because of 
> the -kb, cvs on Linux gave you EXACTLY the file committed on the MS 
> machine which contains "/bin/bash^M"
what happened is this:
- there was no -kb
- a developer checks out the source tree and works with it, making some 
changes to .c files
 - not touching the file in question. the file is a startup script for 
a daemon
- the build is ok on windows, so now he wants to check it is ok on linux
  - we don't want him to commit in order to test.
- so, he mounts the source tree from a linux machine and runs the build
 - this copies the file to the output of the build
- he wants to test the daemon, so he runs the startup script (the file 
in question)
--> this fails. the file was checked out in windows, so now it has ^M

there is now the option to mark the file with -kb, thus solving the 
issue above, but merging will not work
> You do understand that the ends of lines created by _most_ text 
> editing products on Microsoft OS's use CRLF (shown on Unix as "^M"), 
> and unless you tell UNIX text editing/interpreting products to do 
> otherwise they use LF?
yes, it is the developer's responsibility to commit after dos2unix. in 
any case, even if he forgets, it is easy to fix (checkout, remove, commit)
> If you DON'T use -kb, and you do use CVS[NT] in the correct ways 
> (usually the default way), then cvs will take care of the CRLF - LF 
> difference for you.
>
>
>
> an experiment for you:
> on Unix in your sandbox take your test.sh script and run
>
> cat test.sh |  \
>  tr -d "\r" >tmpfile; \
>  mv tmpfile test.sh; \
>  cp test.sh test2.sh; \
>  cvs add -m"no kb" test2.sh; \
>  cvs commit -m"no kb" test2.sh
>
> then `cvs commit test.sh`
> now on windows `cvs update test.sh test2.sh` and then open the test.sh 
> file in your text editor.
> I expect you will see everything on one line, and sometimes it will 
> have a box at the place you expect to see the effect of Enter being 
> pressed.
i'm sure both eclipse and visual studio will handle the file just fine. 
i also think that 'writer' handles such files fine.

ittay
> if you open test.sh with the same editor, you should see everything as 
> you would expect, i.e. correct.
>
> > > should check it out on Linux.  If you can't do that for some reason,
> > > then you need to transfer the file using something that converts the
> > > line endings correctly.
> > >   

--
--
Ittay Dror <address@hidden>