Re: [Monotone-devel] [Monotone-users] CAD versioning

[Hendrik Boom]

On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 11:44:51AM -0600, Stephen Leake wrote:
> Roberto Bartola <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > I'm looking for a versionig software which could be used in (M)CAD projects.
> > I such projects we can find many parts assembled in assemblies and
> > sub/assemblies.
> > I'd like to understand if is it possible to checkin/checkout and put in a
> > lock way the assemblies with its component.
> 
> It is certainly possible to commit the files to monotone; it can handle
> any files.

Monotone can certainly store any files; but can it merge changes to 
those files?

That depends on the file formats.  Monotone does change merging on a 
line-by-line basis,  Most word-processing file formats, for example, 
are terrible at enabling change merging bcause they don't represent 
newlines as new line characters, or because they use data compresssion.
Straight ASCII text, with newlines, is much better, and possibly also 
Microsoft's rich text format (anyone know for sure about this one?)

-- hendrik

> 
> > To do it I need the version software could understand the CAD
> > assemblies or (may be easier) the version software read in a txt file
> > the way the components are assembled.

If it's a txt file, the kind that's memant to be hand-edited, theres 
hope,  What could get in the way is
(1) if the entire txt file is, say, just one line.
(2) if the entire file, as opposed to a few lines, changes wvery tine
the CAD software makes a small change in the design.

Most revision management systems have the same limitations.

With monotone, it's possible to write custom merge rules.  That may be 
complicated, depending on the file format.

-- hendrik