Suggestion: warn about file-name incompatibility
Eric Hanchrow
offby1 at blarg.net
Thu Oct 5 17:57:13 CDT 2006
Here's a summary of a conversation I just had on the #svn IRC channel:
Q:
Help!
Error: Can't move
'D:\klondike\db\SRAM\SYNC1040X16\SYNC1040X16_apo\CEL\.svn\tmp\prop-base\SYNC1040X16:1.svn-base' to
'D:\klondike\db\SRAM\SYNC1040X16\SYNC1040X16_apo\CEL\.svn\prop-base\SYNC1040X16:1.svn-base': The filename,
directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect
What does that mean ?
A:
This is caused by the colon in the file name. Windows doesn't
like colons. This is clearly a shortcoming in the svn docs --
they should make clear that, if you're using a mixed environment,
then file names need to be acceptable to _all_ client platforms.
You should add a pre-commit hook that checks each "add" to make
sure the file name is simple enough to work everywhere. In the
meantime, rename that file so that it doesn't contain a colon:
"svn mv svn://bad/file:name svn://better/file-name"
I've never heard of anyone encountering this problem before, so it
doesn't seem appropriate for a FAQ entry (after all, the "F" in "FAQ"
stands for "frequently"). But I think it's important that we document
this somewhere -- the guy I was talking to was _very_ frustrated, and
had wasted a lot of time trying to work around it in various ways.
Had his administrators thought to put in this sort of pre-commit hook,
or had he found the workaround, a lot of time would have been saved.
So: where can we put this information?
--
It is possible that with more experience and maturity Scorsese
will direct more polished, finished films ...
-- Roger Ebert, 1969
More information about the svnbook-dev
mailing list