RE: [oic] test documents - Symbolic Links? - EMPIRICAL RESULTS

[Hanssens Bart <Bart.Hanssens@fedict.be>]

Dennis,


thanks for the testing.

Now, Windows shortcuts aren't links, although ntfs does offer 'real' links using
mklink on Vista and 7, but as demonstrated, SVN might not be able to use it
directly, and (for now) SVN lacks the share file feature of VSS :/

So, I'll rework the lot and make it more SVN-friendly, without the symbolic links.

(not sure if Mac supports links, but this being and ODF test, not an file system
/ OS interop test, I'm not inclined to have that one tested as well :-)


Best regards

Bart

________________________________________
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [dennis.hamilton@acm.org]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 8:12 PM
To: Hanssens Bart; oic@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [oic] test documents - Symbolic Links? - EMPIRICAL RESULTS

I was going to be cute and make a Windows shortcut in place of the link
file, then see what SVN would do with that when I did a SVN Commit, and then
what would happen for you when you were to do an SVN Update.

Unfortunately, I can't do that.

I can't do that because the link (below) is not over a path that exists from
that place in my working tree.  And I get everything that the OIC SVN Server
has.  It appears that the packages file is meant to be a directory, but on
SVN and on my computer it is none of those, it is a file with a link in it.

So there appear to be even more problems with this approach.

 - Dennis


-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 10:14
To: 'Hanssens Bart'; oic@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [oic] test documents - Symbolic Links? - EMPIRICAL RESULTS

When I did an SVN Update on the OIC SVN Repository to my working copy (kept
on a shared server of my SOHO LAN), I get a file wherever you have made
links.  However, it was not the content of the shared file, it is the text
of the "symbolic link".

For example, the file

<http://tools.oasis-open.org/version-control/svn/oic/TestSuite/branches/bart
h/odf12/scenarios/part3/3/1/001.odt>

ends up on my machine with the name 001.odt and the OpenDocument icon.
However, it is a 41-byte text file with content

link ../../packages/preview_image/001.odt

Of course, the SVN server tries to serve it up as an ODT file too (or at
least my browser wants the DLL for resolving ODF file extensions).

To see what SVN has, go to
<http://tools.oasis-open.org/version-control/svn/oic/TestSuite/branches/bart
h/odf12/scenarios/part3/3/1/>

and download rather than open the 001.odt (or the layout.css for that
matter).

This strikes me as the worst of all possible results.  I speculated
something that would be correct but confusing on your system if anyone else
did updates.  This is worse.   (In VSS, which I still use for development
web-site server source control, I can and do solve this by *actually*
sharing files across projects/folders and a change to any shared copy would
be reflected in new checkouts/gets of any of the others.  I also do this
with software projects that rely on libraries built in other projects under
the same VSS. But VSS is gone forever and no other SCC system seems to have
that feature.)

I don't know what would happen if a Windows shortcut file were used in place
of one of these.  I don't think this provides the desired behavior, in any
case.

It would appear that another problem is that the MIME type for the symbolic
link is probably wrong at the SVN server.  Not sure there is a correct MIME
type for one of these puppies, though.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis E. Hamilton [mailto:dennis.hamilton@acm.org]
http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/oic/200912/msg00025.html
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 07:59
To: 'Hanssens Bart'; oic@lists.oasis-open.org
Subject: RE: [oic] test documents - Symbolic Links?

Let me test my understanding here.

[ ... ]

PS: I speculate that if you update the shared copy on your local system,
each separate copy of the shared instances update on SVN when you SVN
Commit.  If someone updates one of those copies on their machine and does an
SVN Commit, I speculate that single copy updates on SVN.  What happens when
you then SVN Update to your working copy (and do a future SVN Commit), I
hesitate to hazard any guess about.

[ ... ]


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