[cvsnt] CVS Compatible Documentation files

[Bo Berglund]

THis is a feature thta would be very useful if it could be implemented.
However, CVS in itself cannot do this. It has only the choice of storing text or binary files.
Text files are stored in the RCS file as an accumulation of differentials from the latest revision
whereas the binary files are stored in a compressed format fully inside the RCS file.
This means that the text files are more efficiently packed and the repository growth is
controlled since in most cases a new revision does not have many changes compared to the previous one.
But for binary files this is not possible (or at least not implemented), so the complete revision
is stored in the RSC file for each new commit and the RCS file grows almost lineraly with the
number of revisions stored.

All document formats that handle some kind of highlighting or "normal" document formatting are
either binary (MS Word .doc, Acrobat .pdf for example) or some kind of text based metalanguage
like HTML, XML, Postscript or RTF.
The latter *can* be stored efficiently and also diffed in CVS, but the result of the diff is less
than readable, unfortunately. I have tried managing Word docs in RTF format and it is entirely
possible but as soon as you involve embedded graphics the files become unwieldy and diffs are
real hard to understand....

What is needed here is some kind of efficient diff application that can understand the various
file formats and make the diff and then display the result in the way it is displayed when the
host applications use the files. This is a rather difficult undertaking for anyone...

But if it could be done then it would be really great!

/Bo


-----Original Message-----
From: Paul Russell [mailto:paul_newsgroups at yahoo.ca]
Sent: den 25 februari 2003 05:59
To: cvsnt at cvsnt.org
Subject: [cvsnt] CVS Compatible Documentation files



I know that all kinds of documentation can be stored in CVS (text, html, MSWord.doc, ...).

But what I'm wondering is if there is a particular type that seems to work better:

  -changes store neatly (are changes to binary files stored as cleanly as text? html?)

  -can merge changes

  -can do a diff and see readable results (html text changes are buired in formatting info)

  -supports formatted text (fonts, colors)

  -maybe: can use simple tables

  -maybe: supports simple diagrams (line drawings)

At present I use plain text files where possible, and html files for documents requiring formatting. I find it difficult to review changes (diffs) to my html docs.

Suggestions...?

Paul

 



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