Re: git-svn show-externals and svn version

Nikolaus Demmel [off-list ref] writes:

I feel a bit like I am talking to myself, but I see from the high
traffic on this list that people are busy doing great things :-). I will
write anyway in case someone interested in git-svn listens.

Is there an appropriate place to file these kinds of feature/enhancement
requests?

So I've investigated the matter a bit further. Turns out in the
subversion SWIG language bindings there is an API function that parses
svn:externals definitions for you. See [1] for a recent (minimal) change
to make this function available in python. I guess supporting Perl
requires equally minimal changes. I haven't attempted it myself since I
know neither Perl nor SWIG.

How could this be used in git-svn show-externals? As layed out before, I
believe that the current output for the svn1.5 syntax is inherently
broken and we should not worry about backwards compatibility for
that. To maintain backwards compatibility with the output for the old
format and to give a canonical, easy to parse, output for any external
definition, I suggest sticking to the current format, just inserting the
parsed definition at the appropriate place with relative URLs completely
resolved to absolute ones.

[...]

Thoughts, comments, opinions?

Perhaps better support for svn:externals would be a good project for
Git in Google Summer of Code 2012?  You could write a proposal, see

* GSoC 2012 application process
  Message-ID: [ref]
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/192014 

* [RFC] "Remote helper for Subversion" project
  Message-ID: [ref]
  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/192106

* https://github.com/peff/git/wiki/SoC-2012-Ideas

-- 
Jakub Narebski