Subject: Re: Metadata and checkin file date

From: Andreas Ericsson <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 2010 11:22:55 +0200

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.

> 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.

> 2.) Original file dates (checkin date) on clone and pull (and not 
> checkout date)
> 

I expect the solutions that work for 1b will also have this
"feature", or that it will be easy to patch for it. For a
source code management system though, this is a very bad
idea indeed since it messes with the fundamental rules of
building; A changed file must be rebuilt.

Seeing as this would also require a major change in git's
data model, this is another of those changes that I doubt
will be supported in the git core in the foreseeable future.

-- 
Andreas Ericsson                   [email-masked]
OP5 AB                             www.op5.se
Tel: +46 8-230225                  Fax: +46 8-230231

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