Subversion actually uses BerkleyDB as the backing store(see
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/svn-book.html#svn-ch-5-sect-1.3), so it's FAR better than VSS (which uses the filesystem and diff-files last I checked), and somewhat better than CVS.
That said, Neither CVS nor Subversion is a good choice for binary files (and VSS is TERRIBLE). Both have to store a complete new copy of the vile for each checkin, and neither can handle diffs properly.
If you just want simple versioning, RCS works pretty well, and it's a serial-locking system, so it tends to handle binary a bit better, but it's backing is similar to VSS, so reliability can become an issue.
There are some systems that work well with binary, but I'm not well versed in those systems (except for Rational ClearCase, which is SEVERE overkill for what you want).
Anyone on the list have experience with true Configuration Management/Revision Control systems that have good support for binary file formats and are open-source?
==Joseph++
Don Calfa wrote:
> How would subversion be better? Isn't a binary file a binary file a
> binary file as far as versioning systems?
> I know that Visual Source Safe is pretty awful in a worst case scenario
> rebuild whereas CVS can be rebuilt fairly easy in case of a catastrophic
> failure.
> I haven't worked with subversion but from reading a competing versioning
> system marketing, subversion stores it's repository information in the
> same data mess that VSS has.
>
> I don't see how storing a binary file with a timestamp is a bad thing
> even if it does grow rather fast. Disks are cheap today at $.50 a gig.
>
>
>
> Alan Dayley wrote:
>
>> On Wednesday 18 May 2005 05:41 pm, Bryan.ONeal@asu.edu wrote:
>>
>>> The files are going to be things like AutoCAD drawings. So unless
>>> something dose layer and dif checking on that, I think any version
>>> controller that tells us who had what last and if their is a conflict
>>> when checking in, will do just fine. And I figured CVS had been around
>>> long enough support should not be an issue...
>>>
>>> Thanks for the links, I will report back and let you all know how they
>>> like their first taste of Linux ;)
>>
>>
>>
>> It has been too long since I have been around AutoCAD... If the files
>> are binary (ie. not text) CVS is not a good choice. CVS stores an
>> entire copy of each version of a file that is checked in. You can get
>> any version back and it will keep a log and all the usual functions
>> except for doing diffs. But with large AutoCAD files your repository
>> will grow very fast, depending on how often users commit to the
>> repository.
>>
>> Subversion would be a better choice and is very CVS-like. There are
>> other version control systems out there that handle binary files
>> better than CVS.
>>
>> Alan
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