[MERGE][RFC] Add simple revision serializer based on RIO.

[Martin Pool]

2009/4/15 Jelmer Vernooij <jelmer at vernstok.nl>:
> Attached is an updated version of my RIOSerializer patch. It was
> originally sent against brisbane-core.
>
> It would be nice if it could make it into the stable format for 1.15. If
> it is accepted it needs to be changed to be included in that rather than
> in the existing CHK format.

It sounds good to me in principle.  Using XML has caused several other
bugs beside the one you mentioned because it doesn't really guarantee
to store strings byte-for-byte.  It's also a while ago been a slightly
annoying external dependency.

However, before moving to RIO for future formats (and I say this
having added the code) I would think hard about whether it should use
bencode instead, which has the advantage of being able to represent
somewhat more complex nesting (like dicts inside dicts) without
needing a separate layer of encoding on top.  Revisions are pretty
simple but even there it may be useful.  I'm not sure about the
relative performance.

-- 
Martin <http://launchpad.net/~mbp/>