web commit by NicolasDuboc

[ikiwiki.git] / doc / about_rcs_backends.mdwn

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@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-# A few bits about the RCS backends
+A few bits about the RCS backends
+
+[[toc ]]
 
 ## Terminology
 
@@ -115,8 +117,48 @@ part).  GIT doesn't have a similar functionality like 'svn merge -rOLD:NEW
 FILE' (please see the relevant comment in mergepast for more details), so I
 had to invent an ugly hack just for the purpose.
 
-## [mercurial](http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/)
+By design, Git backend uses a "master-clone" repository pair approach in contrast
+to the single repository approach (here, _clone_ may be considered as the working
+copy of a fictious web user).  Even though a single repository implementation is
+possible, it somewhat increases the code complexity of backend (I couldn't figure
+out a uniform method which doesn't depend on the prefered repository model, yet).
+By exploiting the fact that the master repo and _web user_'s repo (`srcdir`) are all
+on the same local machine, I suggest to create the latter with the "`git clone -l -s`"
+command to save disk space.
+
+Note that, as a rule of thumb, you should always put the rcs wrapper (`post-update`)
+into the master repository (`.git/hooks/`) as can be noticed in the Git wrappers of
+the sample [[ikiwiki.setup]].
+
+## [[Mercurial]]
+
+The Mercurial backend is still in a early phase, so it may not be mature 
+enough, but it should be simple to understand and use.
+
+As Mercurial is a distributed RCS, it lacks the distinction between 
+repository and working copy (every wc is a repo).
+
+This means that the Mercurial backend uses directly the repository as 
+working copy (the master M and the working copy W described in the svn 
+example are the same thing).
+
+You only need to specify 'srcdir' (the repository M) and 'destdir' (where
+the HTML will be generated).
+
+Master repository M.
+
+RCS commit from the outside are installed into M.
+
+M is directly used as working copy (M is also W).
+
+HTML is generated from the working copy in M. rcs_update() will update 
+to the last committed revision in M (the same as 'hg update').
+If you use an 'update' hook you can generate automatically the HTML
+in the destination directory each time 'hg update' is called.
+
+CGI operates on M. rcs_commit() will commit directly in M.
 
-Being worked on by Emanuele Aina.
+If you have any question or suggestion about the Mercurial backend 
+please refer to [Emanuele](http://nerd.ocracy.org/em/)
 
-<http://techn.ocracy.org/ikiwiki>
+## [[tla]]
\ No newline at end of file