[ On Wednesday, March 1, 2000 at 09:50:06 (-0500), Noel L Yap wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: removing the need for "cvs add file" to contact the server....
>
> Yes, I know. However, they are created and acted upon by CVS. Our differences
> lie in what conditions they should be created.
Please be very very very careful with your terms! "Managed" in this
case (i.e. in any context where the function of CVS is being discussed)
means "version controlled"! Directories are not "managed" -- they are
simply created and deleted as necessary to contain the files that are
managed. This has been explained by myself and others many many times
already.
> Let's go over it again. All that "cvs add" will do is to create CVS admin
> subdirectories. I say it should do this whether or not the hierarchy is empty.
> If "cvs add" checks for empty hierarchies, it'll do a lot more processing than
> if it didn't.
Sorry, but that's just simply not possible without destroying the
current optimisation that many people rely very very heavily on.
Besides, there's simply no reason to do it either (besides your mistaken
disire to do strange and silly things inside your repository with
unsupported features of your filesystem). Directories need only exist
to hold the files being managed. Building some kind of nonsensical wart
onto CVS so that it can create unnessary directories is simply wrong.
> I expect "cvs add empty-hier" to create CVS admin subdirectories. It must be
> equivalent to "mkdir dir; touch dir/file; cvs add dir; cvs rm dir" (where "dir"
> is "empty-hier" of course). I don't understand how you can disagree with this.
> The local directory doesn't affect anyone.
"cvs rm dir" doesn't do anything either if there are no files to remove!
CVS does not manage directories -- it manages files.
> I expect the following "cvs ci" to create those directories within the repo.
Sorry, no can do. "cvs ci" operates only on files. The directories
necessary to contain those files will appear in the repository *ONLY* as
they are required. No files, no directories. It's really quite simple.
> There is absolutely no reason why this cannot be.
Yes, there is -- it lends to the impression that CVS manages directories
when it cannot. Besides it's 100% unnecessary, despite your ramblings
about wanting to do weird and unsupported things in the repository.
> I understand how you can
> disagree with this.
Then quit trying to argue with nonsense!
> However, as I've pointed out before (and you've totally
> ignoredp) CVS does have one command ("cvs watch") that acts on directories, not
> just the files within those directories.
"cvs watch dir" does *NOT* operate directories! You are failing to
understand the temporal nature of CVS (its most central reason for
being!). This command does in fact operate on the files in a directory,
and indeed not just on those that exist today, but those that might
exist at any time in the future while the "watch" is still in effect.
Just because a file does not yet exist in a "watched" directory does not
mean that the file is not implicitly being watched. This is even
reasonably clearly documented!
> <rhetorical_question> Then why allow directory names to be specified within
> .cvsignore? </rhetorical_question> Regardless of what you say, CVS does know
> about and act on directories. It's true that it doesn't version them but this
> has nothing to do with not being able to create them explicitly.
That doesn't have to be a rhetorical question. The answer in fact is
that Once again it is a simple optimisation that can lend great benefit
to all future CVS commands run in a workspace containing a sub-hierarchy
rooted with a directory having the "ignored" name.
Yes of course CVS acts on directories. However it does not *manage*
directories in the same sense that it manages the files they contain --
it simply creates and deletes directories as is necessary to contain
those files which it does manage. Directories are the invisible
structure that gives form to a module. They are made to come and go as
necessary by CVS in order to hold the files in the desired structure.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 218-0098 VE3TCP <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <robohack!woods>
Planix, Inc. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; Secrets of the Weird <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
