Re: CVS hatred

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From: Ann Barcomb
Subject: Re: CVS hatred
Date: 10:05 on 03 Sep 2004
On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Peter Pentchev wrote:

> Well, if you are not using any CVS keywords, then why don't you just
> say so?  CVS has keyword expansion flags for that, especially -ko,
> although -kb might also be desirable in some cases.  Of course, this
> will not help when you check out or update your work on the production
> servers, but at least on your development machines ko-marked scripts
> will not be touched.

Hmm, probably because I didn't know of that flag.  I have used -kb on
occassion, but not in order to prevent permission changes.

However, I think it is probably not worth setting these flags because
I still won't have the changes on other checkouts.  It would be better
to write a script which sets permissions correctly and is run at
regular intervals.

All in all, a tarball is sounding like a better way of updating a live
server.

It also seems to me that it should be possible to determine whether
keywords are actually used or not and respond accordingly, if the file
is in a setting which allows keywords.

But the real point, as I see it, is that it is not logical that
checking in a file which may contain a CVS keyword changes the
permissions on the file.  I can understand how it happens (probably
because of an rm and a new file instead of a modification of the old
file), but if I wasn't able to imagine an implementation which could
cause that side effect, how would I ever be able to guess that the
way to avoid it would be to eliminate the opportunity for CVS to
use keywords?  You will note that I didn't guess it, even with
the implementation possibility in my mind.

There is simply no logical relationship between the task of saving
a file and automatically changing the permissions of the file.

A search for 'permission' in the man page doesn't mention the solution
of -ko to avoid changes in file permissions--and why should it?  That's
not what the flag is really for.   I pity someone who wants to use
keywords and doesn't have the -ko solution available.  And I still
pity myself, because I want to preserve file permissions across
checkouts, and it looks like I'll have to write a script and keep it
up to date in parallel with CVS.

- Ann
There's stuff above here

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