[cvsnt] Repo/Module setup suggestions and how to use CVS for webdevelopment question?

[Bo Berglund]

Re: binary files
CVS recognizes a file as being binary if it is added with the binary flag.
After this it will not try to merge. But this leads to the result that if
there are two developers who have say revision 1.12 of this file checked out
and both modify it in different ways then the first developer to check in
his
file will "win", his will be the file in the repository, now at revision
1.13
Now the second developer wants to commit, but CVS won't let him because his
local file is not up to date (you can only commit if you commit from the
latest revision on the server). So now he must first update his sandbox.
And this replaces his 1.12 edited file with the 1.13 file from the
repository.
So now his edits are no longer committable, thus lost....

To prevent this from happening you can use reserved edits which is a kind of
locking mechanism that will tell the second developer already when he starts
his editing that the file is being edited by another developer.

And please don't reply to me in private, the replies should go to the list.
This list will need a "reply all" in order to get the message to the
list....

/Bo


-----Original Message-----
From: Samuel Neff [mailto:srnlists at speakeasy.net]
Sent: den 9 maj 2003 17:14
To: bo.berglund at telia.com
Subject: RE: [cvsnt] Repo/Module setup suggestions and how to use CVS
for webdevelopment question?


Bo,

Thanks for your reply.  Brought up a few follow on questions or things I'd
like to clarify.


"In your scenario the production server would have all kinds of
non-working and intermediate files from various developers sometimes
(maybe often) not related to the work being done by a particular
developer."

Just to clarify, we'd be committign to the development server.  We have
separate test, demo, and production servers for which we'd still use manual
file copies for deployment.


"Ooops! This may cause you some problems because binary files are not
mergeable and so if two developers simultaneously edits such files
then the work of one will be lost!"

I thought that once a file was recognized as binary by the extension the CVS
never tried to merge it.. it was just a matter of setting the binary
extensions list or something.  Haven't found out how to do that yet, so
maybe I'm wrong.


"Not being on a LAN.  What do you mean by this? Surely your developers are
connected?"

I mean our developers only have internet connections to each other.  There's
no local domain or even workgroup so we can't share files.  It's important
'cause if we were on a LAN, we would just have CVS "check out" files to a
LAN location on the same server and give everyone their own webroot/username
directory so everyone has their own copy of the code on the same dev server.
Not an option though.


Best regards,

Sam