Hi Julian / Bert et al; I was also thinking along the lines of; Did a file named, filename.extension EVER exist ANYWHERE in the repository. And if so, At what path and revision did it exist?
The times I have wanted to find something in the repository were; "When did this file cease to be" "When did this file start to exist" and the one above, "I'm looking for a file named ... - did I ever have a file named THIS in the repository at ANY path at ANY revision." My initial thoughts were; * it could be an enhancement to "svn ls" * it would require the following attributes : ** accept wildcards, ** search the current path as the default ** have a switch for a recursive search ** have a switch for revision ranges and and a specific changeset (-r n:m -c n : like everywhere else) It would use terminology and command line arguments that everyone is already familiar with. There is no need to leave Subversion and run a tertiary command (Ie. grep) Bert may well be right.... there may be no REAL case for doing this extra work - these can all be done now by various other means; My counter-argumnet however would be that not everyone who uses Subversion is a command line guru or even a developer. It could simply be used as a versioning tool via a GUI by "normal" computer users -that simply don't have the knowledge beyond their OS GUI and "Office" suite of tools. And for the more technically minded, my opinion is - it would still be NICE to be able to perform a file search within the SVN suite using SVN (user) known arguments. Gavin. On 25/11/2009, at 01:33 , Julian Foad wrote: > Bert Huijben wrote: >>> From: Gavin 'Beau' Baumanis [mailto:gav...@thespidernet.com] >>> >>> On the user's list I noticed this thread; >>> http://subversion.tigris.org/ds/viewMessage.do?dsForumId=1065&dsMessageId=2423210 >>> >>> which ultimately asks for, >>> "Is there a way to find out if a file ever existed at a particular URL" > [...] > >> I think most of our users use Subversion to ask questions like >> * How did this file (u...@rev) come in its current state? >> * When was this file (u...@rev) removed? >> >> Subversion was designed to answer this kind of questions. >> >> The question was there ever some file at URL is not related to the revision >> history Subversion was designed for. We track the history of nodes that >> exist as a specific URL in specific revisions. The URL without a revision >> (or just @HEAD) is not something that is versioned inside subversion. > > Hi Bert. Maybe "existed at a particular URL" is not the right way to > describe the class of questions that are lacking, but there are plenty > of times when users need to ask a question like > > When did a entry named "www" last exist in the directory > ^/branches/2....@head ? > > That may be a better way to describe the sort of question Gavin is > interested in tackling. > > - Julian > > >>> So I have a few questions; >>> >>> In the sense of - I was thinking that I could contribute a little more, >>> by producing an appropriate feature proposal - because I have >>> personally at times wanted to do the same thing. >>> In my case, I know the source code tree pretty well and was able to >>> find the file I wanted by viewing through the history of the containing >>> directory with TRAC... >>> >>> Anyway, >>> Before I go and spend some decent time on writing any proposal I >>> thought I would do a "pre" scoping project and illicit some feedback to >>> help guide the direction of the proposal. >>> >>> So a few starting questions I have are; >>> >>> Is there a specific reason or reasons as to why this feature hasn't >>> happened already? is it simply time/resources/money? or this is a >>> significant technical "gotch-ya" that puts put of the realm of natural >>> product progression? >> >> The primary question would be: What use case does this feature solve? >> >> Personally I can't think of use cases that can't be solved in another way >> without this brute force. >> >> * Did this file (u...@rev2) exist at this URL? >> (Just follow the file history) >> >> * When was this file (u...@rev2) deleted? >> >> (svn log -r HEAD:rev2 u...@rev2) >> >>> Does wc-ng better facilitate this feature to be implemented? >> >> WC-NG is a replacement of the working copy library. URL history is stored in >> the repository, so this is unrelated to WC-NG >> >>> And finally (as a start-off question) - While I understand a >>> restricted, small-scoped proposal is a good one - I assume that the >>> proposal should not be so restrictive as to merely look for a child of >>> a given parent - but more-so ensure there is a capability to search the >>> entire source tree for a matching search pattern (file/directory name)? >> >> Bert >>> >>> Thanks for any thoughts. >>> >>> Gavin. >> > >
