Re: svn:externals using git submodules

From: Chris Shoemaker <c.shoemaker@cox.net>
Date: May 1, 2007, 20:23 UTC
Message-ID: <20070501202356.GA25531@pe.Belkin>
In-Reply-To: <200705012048.04817.andyparkins@gmail.com>

On Tue, May 01, 2007 at 08:48:01PM +0100, Andy Parkins wrote:

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> On Tuesday 2007, May 01, Chris Shoemaker wrote:
> 
> > That's only true when the revision is not specified in the external.
> > The repo you track may not do that, but it's not uncommon to do so.
> 
> It's been a while since I used subversion, and even longer since I used 
> externals - is that a new feature?

I don't know, but I would guess that it's no newer than externals in general, as it's not a particularly special case.

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> I used subversion since before 
> version 1.0, so I often missed new features when they arrived. 
> 
> > And, as I think you're pointing out, it's the only way to get any
> > sort of reliable information about the relationship between the
> > parent and the external.
> 
> Does subversion automatically update that fixed attachment when you 
> update the submodule?  I would have found that quite useful back then.

No, you have to manage the revision in the svn:external property manually.

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> > I think it would probably be undesirable for git-svn to attempt to
> > convert "floating" externals into well-versioned submodules, since
> > they're not even well-versioned in the svn repo.  However, handling
> > the "locked-down" externals is quite another thing.
> 
> Absolutely.  If the information is available, then git is certainly 
> capable of recording it.  It sounds like subversion has a facility I 
> didn't know exist, so I've been bad mouthing it more than I should.  Oh 
> well :-)
>

Making git-svn handle svn:externals with specified revisions would be _quite_ useful. There's a special-case of this that I use personally: svn:externals that point to other paths (and other revisions) of the parent repo.

I'm curious if people think that teaching git-svn to handle this special case is more or less difficult than handling the general case.

-chris