<<On Mon, 24 Apr 2000 21:30:01 +1000 (EST), Bruce Evans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> said:
> This seems to be inherent in the file format. Binary data is expanded
> by a factor of 4 due to encoding it as a C array. Even tiny changes
> in the data ripple through the array and give huge diffs. Uuencoding
> the data would only expand it by a factor of 1.4 although it would
> have the same problem with the diffs.
I've been thinking about this recently myself. We want to maintain
the ability to examine historical versions of the code, but actual
diffs from one version to another are, in this context, meaningless.
I'd like to suggest a new hierarchy /usr/firmware, which sits
along-side /usr/src and /usr/ports in our distribution mechanism, but
which does not use RCS files to store version information. Rather,
the version information is encoded in the pathname, and files are
stored and transferred as binary objects. It might look something
like this:
/usr/firmware/
gronk/ (this is the gronk driver)
3.57.OA.bin (where 3.57.OA is vendor's version)
plugh/
42.69/
model1.bin
model2.bin
model3.bin
-GAWollman
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