Meta-Description of changes in the repository format

[Adrian Buehlmann]

On 26.09.2008 10:24, Arne Babenhauserheide wrote:
> Would it be possible to create a meta-description of the changes in the 
> repository format to enable old versions of Mercurial to read repositories in 
> a changed format? 

Very unlikely. This would just add a pointless level of ridiculous complexity without
really solving the underlying inherent problem.

Either stick to the old format or use the wire protocol or bundles
for moving changes around.

For example for the fncache repo layout [1], the most complex thing is that new list of
files in the store. If you had tried to anticipate that in a "meta" format,
you would pretty much have had to resort to inject core parts of the Mercurial
code into the repository, which would cause a lot more troubles than
it would ever be able to solve.

[1] http://marc.info/?l=mercurial-devel&m=122079447309319&w=2