fast-import issues with monotone

["Felipe Contreras" <felipe.contreras@gmail.com>]

Hi,

I'm stuck with yet another issue while trying to export a mtn
repository, so I thought on sharing the list of issues:

a) directory rename/deletes are indistinguishable from files

This means directories must be tracked by the generator to find out if
the operation is on a file, or a directory. If it's in a directory
then the operation should be executed in all the files that are under
that directory.

It's possible to find out the whole tree of a revision, but it's a
*very* expensive operation (takes about a second).

b) file mode changes are just like any other operation (you don't get
the mode at each revision)

This means the file mode needs to be tracked all the time. Also, it
means the file contents (blob) needs to be tracked because sometimes
the only change in the file is the mode.

Again, retrieving the whole tree is possible, but expensive.


There are other issues, but not so important.

For these two issues the only viable solution is to keep track of the
whole tree of each revision. Does it makes sense to do that? Or would
it make more sense to modify fast-import to allow more delta-oriented
operations?

-- 
Felipe Contreras