#26 Support SVN repo paths more directly
I am using tkdiff 4.3.5 with SVN on Red Hat 7 linux.
It seems that the following works as expected:
linux%> tkdiff -r<r1> -r<r2> <path_to_file)in_working_copy> // works nicely</path_to_file)in_working_copy></r2></r1>
However, the following does NOT work as expected. It is similar to the above, except it uses an SVN repo file server path, not a path to a file on the local drive, for the base file location. For the following example, tkdiff is unable to find the SVN file revs on the SVN server (r1 and r2) and instead uses the HEAD revision (not r1 and r2) for both files in the compare, which is not what we are asking for. As a result the answer is always "files are identical" for a compare of HEAD vs HEAD.
linux%> tkdiff -r<r1> -r<r2> <http://svn_repo/path/to/file/on/server> // not supported by tkdiff ?
The workaround (which works) is to specify the full SVN server path and use the "@<rev>" syntax, to specify both files/revs in the compare, but this takes more effort:</rev>
linux%>tkdiff <http://svn_repo/path/to/file/on/server>@r1 <http://svn_repo/path/to/file/on/server>@r2 // works OK, but a bit clumsier than the above
So tkdiff does (somewhat clumsily) support this case, but it wasn't what I expected ater years of using "tkdiff -r<r1> -r<r2> <file>" for files local to my drive.</file></r2></r1>
I would also note that this proposal would more closely align tkdiff with svn diff, as svn diff does support the proposed syntax:
linux%> svn diff -r<r1> -r<r2> <http://svn_repo/path/to/file/on/server> // supported by SVN diff
I would suspect this would be a relatively simple chage to make to the tkdiff parser.
Thanks -
Matt Gavin
I have just checked in a fix for this. It was vexing me, too.
I agree that the Subversion URL syntax did have a bit of a "stuck on at the last minute" attribute going for it. The upcoming release should adrress that by treating it in a more mainstream way (although it will likely still be required to reference a file, as opposed to just any old object). Many thanks to Dorothy for taking a quick stab to address this from the command line point-of-view. This will work (soon) in both the command line and interactive dialog modes in the upcoming release.
As promised, URL usage should now be more natural within TkDiff, for those Subversion user that can make use of them. There is a specific section about them in the online help, and special interactivity within the startup dialog to ensure their proper entry. All of this has now been provided via release V5.0