ZIP files in working tree

[Martin von Gagern]

Hi Jelmer,

thanks for your quick reply!

On 25.03.2010 15:46, Jelmer Vernooij wrote:
>> I often would have wished for a plugin to handle these things as a
>> single ZIP in a working tree, but as a directory of members inside the
>> branch. That would allow easier markup of changes, and increase the
>> chances of successful three-way merges. It might also reduce space
>> requirements to the actual modification, omitting impact caused by
>> subsequent differences in the compressed data stream.
>>
> I think this would be very useful *and* feasible with the current Bazaar
> API, as of recent Bazaar releases. Things like the NEWS merger or the
> debian/changelog merger demonstrate that the required infrastructure for
> custom mergers works well.

I guess my thoughts go a bit further than a simple merger. As far as I
understand it, a merger is plugged into the merge process to merge a
single file, without any effects otherwise.

My proposed realization on the other hand would cause the data to be
different between working tree and branch, for reasons quoted above. It
would not only affect merge, but also commands like update, checkout,
resolve, and probably many more.

I haven't looked at how a merger is implemented, but I assume that to do
my thing, a plugin would have to instal a wrapper around the object
encapsulating the working tree, making sure that access to some working
tree files is translated into access to specific members of the
containing archives.

I assume such a wrapper would already be possible through evil python
monkeypatch hackery, but maybe there is even a clean API for a plugin to
install or alter the working tree object. If not, maybe there should be.

Greetings,
 Martin

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