Bazaar stores only expanded lp: branch URL

[Russel Winder]

When a user (i.e. me :-) issues a bzr command that uses an lp: URL, Bazaar stores the expanded version of this in .bzr/branch/branch.conf. This means that the lp: URL is stored in its interpreted at the time form. If the binding of the lp: URL is changed on Launchpad the user has no knowledge of this. If Bazaar stored the lp: URL directly then interpretation would occur at the time of command issuing which means the current binding at Launchpad would be used.

[Jelmer Vernooij (jelmer)]

  status confirmed
  importance low

[Matthew Fuller (fullermd)]

> If Bazaar stored the lp: URL directly then interpretation would
> occur at the time of command issuing which means the current binding
> at Launchpad would be used.

On the other hand, you'd eat the directory lookup every time too.

[Russel Winder (russel)]

Not sure what is meant by "eat the directory lookup".

[Matt Nordhoff (mnordhoff)]

I imagine he just means that you'd have to do the directory lookup every time you pull, push, etc. Not a big deal, but there is a cost. (Especially if you're on a high-latency connection.)

[Matt Nordhoff (mnordhoff)]

(By "you'd have to" I just mean bzr...)

[Russel Winder (russel)]

I agree there would likely be some overhead but until experiments are done we have no scale, i.e. no idea if it is 0.005% or 50%. I am not sure what my point of pain would be, a 5% overhead would likely be fine. All in all, I would like the option of having a static binding or a dynamic binding of the client to the server.

(I have been bitten too often now by knowledge of changed lp: URLs not being promulgated in any way around the system.)

[Jonathan Lange (jml)]

I've had corridor conversations about this in the past.

In my ideal world, Bazaar would store both what you asked for (e.g. lp:launchpadlib) and what you got (e.g. bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~launchpad-pqm/launchpadlib/trunk). This way, users would be able to make an informed decision if ever the expansion of the directory URL changed.

To me, this is a bug in all directory services, not just Launchpad's.

[John A Meinel (jameinel)]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Russel Winder wrote:
> I agree there would likely be some overhead but until experiments are
> done we have no scale, i.e. no idea if it is 0.005% or 50%. I am not
> sure what my point of pain would be, a 5% overhead would likely be fine.
> All in all, I would like the option of having a static binding or a
> dynamic binding of the client to the server.
>
> (I have been bitten too often now by knowledge of changed lp: URLs not
> being promulgated in any way around the system.)
>

You can do:

echo "parent_location = lp:foo" >> .bzr/branch/branch.conf

And have it preserved (until you do --remember, etc).

As for the default... If a project changes their development focus, but
you are tracking the specific branch, the opposite would be desired.

I would guess that always resolving lp:foo would be what most people
would expect, though.

John
=:->
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Cygwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/

iEYEARECAAYFAkte9vEACgkQJdeBCYSNAAP2BQCgzIJsICYqu0lPzzhNcH5fNC/N
cysAnj8ZJp6E+ke96pvy0QnCY3NK4UQV
=pDQj
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----