[Aldor-l] src/file.c == subcmd/unitools/file.c

[David Casperson]

On 2007-12-08 Ralf Hemmecke wrote:

> Date: Sat, 08 Dec 2007 09:15:49 +0100
> From: Ralf Hemmecke <ralf at hemmecke.de>
> To: aldor-l <aldor-l at aldor.org>
> Subject: [Aldor-l] src/file.c == subcmd/unitools/file.c
> 
> cd trunk/aldor/aldor
> cmp src/file.c subcmd/unitools/file.c
>
> Those files are identical. Is there some good reason to keep both of them?
>
> In fact there are several files with the same content (see below).
>
> I suggest to replace the files outside the src directory with symbolic
> links. Subversion is able to deal with symbolic links (see Subversion book).

I agree with Ralph that there is redundancy in the source tree
and that it is healthful to eliminate the redundancy if
possible.

However, I wonder if symbolic links are the way to go.  To answer
the question of how to organize the SVN repository, we need to
know who's using it for what.

I suspect that the original redundancy came from someone
mistakenly checking in the files in subcmd/unitools because it
wasn't clear that they should be ignored.  Perhaps we should
simply eliminate the redundant copies from the SVN repository
altogether.

I think that it comes down to use-cases.  How do we image the SVN
repository being used?  For someone who just wants to build
Aldor, and possibly tweak things a little, or investigate the
source code, completely removing the redundancy and having
Makefile\s copy the source-code is probably the way to go.

For someone who wishes to fix or modify subcmd/unitools, the
important thing is to give that person the best chance of not
accidentally committing redundant code to the repository.  Here
are some possibilities:

  o the files are stored as links in the repository
  o the files are created as links by the Makefile if possible
  o the files are created as read-only
  o make clean removes the redundant files
  o the directory properties in SVN record the fact that the
    redundant files are to be ignored.

Not all of these possibilities are mutually exclusive.   I know
that one thing that I tripped over in implementing the Mac port
was figuring out how to ADD a file to the aldor/aldor/src
directory.  This is a little trickier than it looks, because two
or three Makefiles need updating so that the added file
propagates where needed.

What are other people's thoughts?

David
-- 
David Casperson
Computer Science
UNBC