[cvsnt] Changing a file from binary to text...

[Bo Berglund]

I have this old problem that was not possible to solve back in the cvs
1.11.1xxx times, but now I am not so sure anymore so I thought that I
should ask again:

Imagine that you are using a development IDE that stores some of the
form information in binary files (in Delphi this is in *.dfm files).
For each form you create you add two files to the repository, the
*.pas as text and the *.dfm as binary.
Now you have to observe all of the precautions concerning simultaneous
edits that apply to all binary files in CVS. Not so good..

Then along comes Borland and changes the next version of your IDE such
that from now on you can use dfm files formatted as text or binary by
your own choosing. From now on all new forms go into CVS as two text
files and there are no special handling problems anymore.

Now my problem:
At this time I would like to change the mode of the dfm files such
that when I commit a new revision (which is now text) I want to tell
CVS that *from now on* this file is in text mode. This means that
whenever an update is done in the future CVS will happily merge the
changes for me and if I request a revision from before the mode change
it will use whatever method it applies to binary files.
This of course forces the CVS server to somehow store the change in
file mode in the RCS file such that it can use the correct handling
depending on revision.

Is this at all possible or can I forget it forever?


/Bo
(Bo Berglund, developer in Sweden)