Re: FW: [DESIGN] Aliases?

Matthias Wächter wrote:

> Julian Foad schrieb:
>
>> Matthias Wächter wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> If I understand the issue correctly, what Subversion is missing is a 
>>> way to specify a tag, and instead of checking out the tag 
>>> (directory) getting the source-of-tag directory.
>>>
>>> For example, consider a checked-out directory:
>>>
>>> /repos/trunk/ (@5)
>>>             /file1 (@5)
>>>             /file2 (@7)
>>>
>>> When you create a tag, you simply make "svn cp . 
>>> http://server/repos/tags/mytag" committing, f.e., rev. 10
>>>
>>> When you check out "http://server/repos/tags/mytag" again, despite 
>>> the nomenclature and possibly typing more than in the case of 
>>> proposed aliases, you end up with
>>>
>>> /
>>> repos/tags/mytag/ (@10)
>>>                 /file1 (@10)
>>>                 /file2 (@10)
>>>
>>> but what you actually need is to check out what you had before, 
>>> /repos/trunk @5 and the files @5 and @7, even if the tag was @10. 
>>
>>
>> Maybe you are right, but could you please continue this example and 
>> show WHY you actually need the WC to be based on /trunk@5 etc.  What 
>> sort of operations does this enable or make easier, compared to the 
>> WC being based on /tags/mytag@10 ?
>
>
> Well, I don't know. :-) I only try to find a solution for the 
> 'aliases' problem other people request, using generic SVN techniques.
>
> At first, it makes the behavior identical to CVS: If you tag something 
> and checkout the tag again, you get _precisely_ the same thing that 
> you had when you tagged. "svn status -v" and "svn info" will give the 
> same output as before the tag. It would even anticipate that the 
> repository revision counts over time: Using "conventional" SVN tags 
> one ends checking out the tag directory @10 or @15 or @1500 if the 
> repository was updated a couple of times. In the proposed tag 
> walk-back way you would always end up at /repos/trunk @5-7. That's 
> what I'd call a real tag (if I needed such :-)).
>
> And all that with the added value of versioned tags which you don't 
> have in CVS.
>
> - Matthias

*cough*..  this is probably getting old by now, but "walkbacks" sounds 
like a feature which would be solved well by the implementation of 
views, which have also been referred to as "repository-side symlinks" 
and "svn:externals for files". Probably only by people talking to me.
Always trying to solve everything at once...