[SVN-1213] --revision PREVX enhancement wish

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Open
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Unresolved
• Affects Version/s: all
• Fix Version/s: 1.10-consider
• Component/s: libsvn_client
• Labels: api bite-sized patch
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Subversion Importer
• Created: 31/Mar/03 01:21
• Updated: 19/Feb/15 14:57

Description

[I wish there were a better mechanism for specifying a file for
example "two changes ago".  I have emacs macros that make it very easy
to do "diff between workfile/repository-version and X changes ago". 
For example I have "M-2 M-v M-=" to compare the workfile to the file 2
changes ago.  This only works in cvs by assuming that version numbers
are strictly increasing by 1 (which is almost always true in cvs). 
Subversion's PREV revision keyword is useful for comparing to _1_
change ago but not any other.  To compare to 2 changes ago you have to
look at the log output for the previous change's revision number,
requiring much more than 4 keystrokes (in my setup) and much more
brain processing power by user.]

So I wish there were a way to specify "X changes ago" to the
--revision switch.  The PREV and COMMITTED revision keywords already
exist which consider individual files rather than the repository as a
whole.  Maybe "PREV2", "PREV3" tags, etc if that isn't too ugly a
kludge or some new syntax like "-2", i.e. "svn diff -1:HEAD foo.c"
equivalent to PREV:HEAD and also allowing e.g. "svn diff -2:1234
foo.c" comparing the file at revision 1234 and two changes before
that.  Maybe I'm thinking too cvs/rcs-ish but even in a project it is
useful to think about a file as a unit when you can easily check
successive changes in the file's history.  It would simply be a
shortcut to having to check svn log.

Original issue reported by quarl