[cvsnt] Re: "cvs diff -rHEAD" annoyance

[Johan Holmberg]

Tony Hoyle <tmh at nodomain.org> writes:
>
> On 15 Jul 2004 12:30:13 +0200, Johan Holmberg <holmberg at iar.se> wrote:
> 
[...]
> >
> >    $ cvs diff -rHEAD
> >    cvs server: Diffing .
> >**  cvs server: foo.txt no longer exists, no comparison available
> >
> >
> >I wonder why the line marked ** appears?
> 
> A quick google shows this to be documented behaviour for standard CVS
> going back a long way... it seems to be correct to me.
> 

One of the things I tried to point out, was that standard CVS *didn't*
behave that way. I have tried the following constallations of
clients/servers:

  + client: standard CVS 1.11.12   + server: standard CVS 1.11.13
  + client: CVSNT  2.0.41a         + server: standard CVS 1.11.13

  - client: CVSNT  2.0.41a         + server: CVSNT 2.0.42
                                             (Prerelease Jun 10 2004)

The only combination of client/server so far that issues the ** line,
is the last combination with CVSNT in both ends (or put another way:
with CVSNT in the server end).

> > It seems to me, like the CVSNT server can't make up its mind whether
> > the file should be considered to exist or not.
> 
> On the contrary, it's telling you precisely what it knows to be true,
> that foo.txt has been deleted.
> 

But the situation I have is:

    - the file is in the "attic" on the server AND
    - I don't have it locally

Should this really be considered a "difference" ?


> Apparently HEAD has a different meaning for diff.. it's not something
> I've looked at though so I'm not sure why.
> 
> For some discussion about this see
> http://groups.google.com/groups?threadm=3936C0BC.7A48A43D%40teloseng.com
> 

I don't know if I understood all of that disscussion, but weren't they
talking about different branches, and the meaning of HEAD in that context ?
My example was very simple with all revisions on the mainline.


/Johan Holmberg