At 07:54 18/9/00 +0200, you wrote:
>>We are in the course of reworking the file handling tasks so this is
>>the right time to speak up. Currently we have overwrite if source is
>>newer (the default) and always overwrite (if forceoverwrite has been
>>set). Have you thought about how to state the additional options
>>(speaking of attributes)?
>
>Hm... I've thought, but not thoroughly. Just some ideas:
>
>Src=... dest=...
>backup="Yes|No" ifExist="ignore|newer|force|alternate"
One point here is that XML style is always to use lower case and seperate
word boundaries with - however as ant doesn't handle - AFAIK it is usually
elided and a run created
ie backup="yes|no" ifexist="ignore|newer|force|alternate"
>Backup = "true" => make backup copy if a copy is done. Ant selects
>the name for the backup file on a per-platform basis (.BAK, .OLD ...)
No - it should always be one extention - I don't want to go through hell
just because some people compile on one platform and others on another :P.
Probably best to use one of the default exclude backups (ie append ~)
>ifExist = "ignore" => never copy file if it already exists.
> = "newer" => copy file if src newer than destination
> = "force" => copy file unconditionally
I like the above
> = "alternate" => copy src file to alternate destination, i. e.
> 'dest.dist' if destination exists. Possibly
> backup if 'dest.dist' also exists.
I dislike this and don't really see the need in a "copy" task
>One aspect to bear in mind is that there propably will be a need for
>more policies over time. Possible examples would be multiple backups
>("dest.BAK.1, dest.BAK.2, dest.BAK.3") and/or my real favourite: a
>diff3 type of merge of the config file changes both from site and
>vendor. This is not for now, unfortunately. This could be handled by
>backup="rolling" or ifExist="merge" in this type of attribute scheme.
ack WARNING flexability syndrome :P. It is unlikely to be needed in a copy
task so we can put it in another if it is desperately needed
Cheers,
Pete
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