Re: [coldsync-hackers] Re: autorescue

[Andrew Arensburger <arensb+CShackers at ooblick dot com>]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 04:05:29AM +0100, Josef Karthauser wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2002 at 11:26:54PM +0100, Alessandro Zummo wrote:
> > Attic holds the files you deleted from the Palm.
> 
> Did I miss the addition of automatic CVS backups of the contents of your
> palm?  That would be nice. Hmm hmm.

	It's not CVS, but the Attic directory has been there from day
one. Yes, the name "Attic" was inspired by CVS, but that's it.
	Beyond that, I think CVS can handle binary files (or maybe I'm
thinking of ClearCase), but only in a very primitive way: if the file
has changed, it records this fact, but only with full-file
granularity; it doesn't try to figure out which parts have changed.
Thus, if you change a single byte in a 10Kb file, the CVS file will
record, "this 10Kb chunk of data here has been replaced by that 10Kb
chunk of data over there." This is not terribly efficient and would
grow without bounds over time.
	If you wanted to put a PDB under CVS, IMHO the way to do it
would be to write a Dump conduit that parses the .pdb file, splits it
up into various files in a directory (an ASCII file for the header,
another for the index, and a bunch of binary files for the records),
then runs 'cvs add *; cvs commit'.

	Then again, consider whether this is appropriate for the
database in question. IME, I don't modify records in most databases, I
merely create and delete them (e.g., "To Do"). There are a few "Memo"
records that I modify from time to time, but those are the exception,
not the rule.

-- 
Andrew Arensburger                      This message *does* represent the
arensb@ooblick.com                      views of ooblick.com
      War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ketchup is a vegetable.

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