In order to be able to do some Merkle-tree style functions on sets of files canonically held in Subversion, it would be great to ask Svn for a SHA1 for the files, or collections thereof from that node downwards.
I would raise a new feature request direct into Svn, but the JIRA notes says to not do that, and instead to come here to discuss. More info: the technology I'm playing with doesn't do a svn checkout, but instead monitors the the repo via 'svn ls' (via polling). It is easiest to hit up the root note and ask for a sha1, then walk the tree (remotely) to get the actually changes nodes deeper in the tree. Sure, the revision integer is there too - but I need to compare to a *local* representation of the same tree that's not under subversion control, and I'll have to calculate SHA1 of the resource immediately after bringing it down from the server (rather that just trusting the server's version). Of course, I'm focussed on 'svn ls' and I am sure there are other functions that could report the SHA1 too. Someone else might say SHA-2 or 3, and I'm happy to bow to their expertise. - Paul
