--- Lee Sau Dan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My credit card is also designed to server a > very very specific > purpose. But when I can't a ruler nearby and I > need one, why not use > that plastic object from purse as a ruler?
I'm assuming you mean a straight-edge, not a ruler? Actually, this brings up an even better analogy: A ruler is meant to measure things, not as a straight-edge. (Some rulers can be destroyed when used as a straight-edge too many times). Despite this, how many of us use rulers as straight-edges and live with the possible consequences? > But _mainly_ text files which do not differ a > lot from version to > version. At least, the implementation makes > this assumption and > optimizes on it. The support for binary files is > just a "refuge" just > in case you need to keep binary files. As I like to point out every now and then, there's a difference between the attribute of being text or binary and the attribute of being mergable. There are text formats that aren't easily mergable (eg XML) and binary formats that can be mergable (eg Word). So long as there's an algorithm that can be used to perform a three-way merge, a file a mergable. Since CVS uses diff3 and patch, it can only try to merge text files. > If all your files are 30MB binary files, then > CVS won't do you > anything better than manually appending a > version-id to the name of > your file and using a README file for storing > the revision log > messages. If you can't 'diff' and 'merge', why are > you using CVS? I think the typical answer is, "To have one version control interface to work with." > ( > I did have some discussions with some colleagues > from another team who > intended to store MSWord .doc files with CVS. My > team uses XML -- > text files -- and hence CVS works well. Or, more likely, well enough for your needs. Since XML isn't the typical linear text format (ie it's hierarchical), diff3 isn't the ideal three-way diff tool to use. > Of course, > purely theoretically, we should never ever use > CVS for any bit of > binary file. Theoretically, CVS should be fixed in order to be able to handle mergable binary files. Noel __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Try FREE Yahoo! Mail - the world's greatest free email! http://mail.yahoo.com/ _______________________________________________ Info-cvs mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-cvs
