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> 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.
BTW: CVSNT 1.11.1.4 Alpha supports binary diffs, so saying it isn't
implemented is not entirely accurate. It's just not yet in the stable
releases.
> All document formats that handle some kind of highlighting or "normal"
document
> formatting are
> either binary (MS Word .doc, Acrobat .pdf for example)
Just on a sidenote: Have you ever looked at an Acrobat file? Many are also
text-only, similar to RTF.
> 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....
The problem is that the diffs done by CVS work line-based. If there was a
format that enforced separation of formatting and content with line feeds
diffing would probably be a bit easier.
> 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...
ComponentSoftware (http://www.componentsoftware.com) has some specialized
Diff'ers for HTML, Excel and maybe more. IIRC their CSDiff even utilizes MS
Word's built-in versioning functionality to implement a Word-Diff. I haven't
used any of these products extensively myself though, as I don't deal with
such documents a lot so I couldn't comment further.
Cheers,
Oliver
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