Re: Metadata and checkin file date

> On Tue, 27 Apr 2010, Andreas Ericsson wrote:
> 
>> On 04/27/2010 07:23 AM, Gerhard Wiesinger wrote:
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I'm new to git and I'm looking for the following features:
>>> 1.) Metadata for
>>> a.) directory versioning (e.g. add/rm, mv)
>>
>> If you're talking about empty directories, that feature doesn't
>> exist and I can't imagine why you'd want it to. If you'd care to
>> explain why you want it, I'm sure we can find a different way of
>> achieving your goal.
> 
> Git focuses on content but I think git should also focus on metadata. 
> For example restructuring source code moves (git mv file1.c file2.c, git 
> mv dir1 dir2) should be documented also in the repository like e.g. 
> subversion and commercial SCM like clearcase do. Otherwise we are on 
> "CVS" level.
> 
> Empty directories is a special case and sometimes you need just 
> versioned empty directies.
> 

>>> b.) rights (basic: chmod, chow, chgrp, extended: extended attributes
>>> like ACLs and selinux), necessary for versioning e.g. /etc
>>
>> Sounds like you want a backup-program. Some projects have been
>> aimed towards this goal already. I'm sure google can provide
>> more information. AFAIR, most of them work with two hook-scripts
>> that update a regular file with the meta-data of all tracked
>> files. This makes committing and checking out slower than it
>> would otherwise be, but since it's doing more I suppose that's
>> to be expected.
>>
>> Adding it to core git would mean re-designing git's basic data
>> model, which is obviously not something we're about to do on
>> a whim.
> 
> No, I'm NOT looking for a backup program. Every admin has the problem of 
> versioning config files (for example /etc). Versioning of config files 
> makes sense because one can track the changes and e.g. correlate to 
> problems. A backup program doesn't have features like history, committer 
> and comments on file changes. Therefore git would be a perfect tool also 
> for versioning configuration. (Software development doesn't end with the 
> build but typically also has deployment&configuration issues).
>