Question

In Subversion can files in the tags folder be a reference (i.e. like a symbolic link) to those in a certain revision to save space?

From my question What actually are tags in subversion (SVN)? And what tag tools does SVN offer built-in? (Compared to Clearcase) I learnt that tags are just directories holding snapshots of one’s source.

But if a tag contains the files that are also in a certain revision, then isn’t that wasteful? OK, one could argue that storage is cheap, but that depends on how big the source is and how many revisions and tags there will be now, and in the future.

So for efficiency sake (and for the reassurance that they are actually the same file), can a tag kind of symbolically link to specific revision that contains the files?

Answer 1

2 answers to your question:

1. Tags in Subversion are as cheap as tags in other configuration management systems, because they are just “cheap copies” held at the server. You normally don’t check out a tag locally, because you will not work on it (directly).
2. There is an option to have so called externals that allow to link to an existing content, even to a specific revision of that content. Since SVN 1.6.x, this can be even done for files, not only directories.

So if you want to save space, you should not use svn:externals (at least not for tags) because it is cheap anyway.