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Subject:Re: Content Mgmt for binary files From:Chris Gooch <chris -dot- gooch -at- lightworkdesign -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com Date:Wed, 13 Aug 2003 16:54:30 +0100
Dan Roberts wrote:
++
>From the little bit of research I've done so far, it seems that standard
development-centric tools (VSS, CVS, MSCMS, etc) arent going to give the
ability to track and version binary files (aka Word files).
...
Does anyone know of a tool that will provide
reliable change tracking and version control inside binary files?
++
Depends what you mean by "tracking and version control".
I'm not sure about VSS, but Perforce can certainly _handle_ binaries,
in the sense that you can check them in and check them out,
tag them, branch them, yada yada yada. Only problem is, it
stores a whole new copy for each revision rather than storing
a base version plus series of diffs (vectors). This has two drawbacks,
one it takes up lots of room on the server, and two, you can't
see the diffs between the two versions in the version control software
itself. You could, however, simply open any 2 versions of the file
that you have stored in the version control system, and compare
them in Word (or whatever) in the normal way.
Christopher Gooch, Technical Author
LightWork Design, Sheffield, UK.
www.lightworkdesign.com