Re: [PATCH] Change softrefs file format from text (82 bytes per entry) to binary (40 bytes per entry)

From: Johan Herland <johan@herland.net>
Date: Jun 10, 2007, 14:03 UTC
Message-ID: <200706101603.43027.johan@herland.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0706100900420.4059@racer.site>

On Sunday 10 June 2007, Johannes Schindelin wrote:

Show 14 quoted lines

> On Sat, 9 Jun 2007, Johan Herland wrote:
> > The text-based softrefs file format uses 82 bytes per entry (40 bytes 
> > from_sha1 in hex, 1 byte SP, 40 bytes to_sha1 in hex, 1 byte LF).
> > 
> > The binary softrefs file format uses 40 bytes per entry (20 bytes 
> > from_sha1, 20 bytes to_sha1).
> > 
> > Moving to a binary format increases performance slightly, but sacrifices 
> > easy readability of the softrefs files.
> 
> It is bad style to introduce one type, and then change it to another in a 
> backwards-incompatible way. Either you make it backwards compatible, or 
> you start with the second format, never even mentioning that you had 
> another format.

As Junio correctly pointed out, this patch is only here to demonstrate an alternative solution. Whether or not this patch should be used should be determined _long_ before (even thinking about) putting this into a release.

...Johan

-- 
Johan Herland, <johan@herland.net>
www.herland.net