Re: [Gnu-arch-users] Re: tag'ged (branched) and cacherev'ed archive dependency?

[Miles Bader]

On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 11:25:41AM -0300, Rodrigo Bernardo Pimentel wrote:
>         Anyway, I must say I'm surprised at people's negative reaction to
> having cacherev (or some other command) cacheing more information (namely,
> the project's history). Is it too hard to implement? Would a patch be simply
> dismissed because all of you actually think the way it is today is "The
> Right Way"?

In some sense, the project's `history' _is_ present in the cacherev (and in
every project tree!), in the form of patch-logs.  It's just the detailed
patches that are missing.  And storing all the actual old patches in a
cacherev would not only make it much more complex, but in many cases much
larger.

Really, it wouldn't be a suitable thing for cacherevs, because of the added
cost; if this facility is something people want, then it should be a new
independent feature, so those who care can use it, without screwing up
cachrevs for everybody else ...  and guess what, that independent feature
_already exists_, in the form of mirrors!

>         If I mirror an archive, can I later use the mirror as a "proper"
> archive? I.e., can I erase the original archive, "register-archive -d" it
> and "register-archive" the (former) mirror as the "main" archive, and
> nothing will change?

Yes (though you have to delete the archive meta-info file that marks it as
being a mirror, so that tla will let you write to it).

>         And, if that's possible, how can I migrate a project from one
> archive to another? Because, is this case, if I had an old archive that I
> wanted to get rid of, but which contained only one important project, I
> could move that project (along with its history etc) to a new archive.

You could mirror it, either fully or partially, or you could even just make a
new empty archive, and use `cp' to copy in the branches you want ... :-)
Arch's archive format is quite easy to manage with normal unix tools...

>         I find it really odd that I can't do things like mirror a project,
> only an entire archive. I mean, if I understood correctly, I can't do
> anything of the kind, right?

You can make partial mirrors, if that's what you mean
(try `tla archive-mirror --help').

-Miles
-- 
Ich bin ein Virus. Mach' mit und kopiere mich in Deine .signature.