[Users] path expansion in git/darcs/hg repositories

[Erik Schnetter]

On Jun 7, 2010, at 12:51 , Roland Haas wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> So my feature request is to have functionality similar to the URL  
> expansion done for svn either in the REPO_PATH variable or in the  
> git URL. The later might be more consistent with with svn but  
> requires some extra logic in the form of way to mark where the  
> actual repository URL ends and where the directory-within-repository  
> part start.
>
> We have a thorn SoundSpeed that computes the speed of sound and  
> which lives in its own git repository:
>
> Scotch/Soundspeed/.git
>
> I would like to be able to do say
>
> !TARGET   = $ARR
> !TYPE     = git
> !URL      = git://someurl/Scotch/SoundSpeed
> !AUTH_URL = rhaas3 at someotherurl/Scotch/SoundSpeed
> !REPO_PATH= ../$2
> !CHECKOUT =
> Scotch/SoundSpeed
>
> and
>
> !TARGET   = $ARR
> !TYPE     = git
> !URL      = git://someurl/PersonalCode
> !AUTH_URL = rhaas3 at someotherurl/PersonalCode
> !REPO_PATH= Cactus/Hydro/$1/experimental/$2
> !CHECKOUT =
> Scotch/SoundSpeed
>
> Or if everything was to be encoded in the URL part the way it is  
> done for subversion:
>
> !URL      = git://someurl/PersonalCode/.git/Cactus/Hydro/$1/experimental/$2
> !CHECKOUT =
> Scotch/SoundSpeed
>
> where '.git/' serves as a marker to separate the actual URL of the  
> repository from the path in the repository.

I don't think we can rely on the special directory name ".git" to  
separate repositories from paths within repositories.  cvs and svn are  
exceptions here, because subdirectories of repositories look again  
like repositories to the outside.

On the other hand, introducing REPO_PATH for cvs and svn repositories  
would be possible, and would allow people to check out the whole svn  
repository into a top-level "svn-repos", and then point to parts of  
it.  However, this is neither important nor urgent at the moment.

-erik

-- 
Erik Schnetter <schnetter at cct.lsu.edu>   http://www.cct.lsu.edu/~eschnett/