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Versions |
This chapter starts with a simple scenario that highlights the need for a document open operation. It then develops the operation, adding capability. The examples demonstrate the relation between the document open operation and version creation. Finally, the version comparison operation is discussed.
Why Versions?
The simplest example to show the need for an open operation is simultaneous editing of a document by two authors. If they both edit the same copy of the document, their conflicting changes could destroy it. The first frontend to open the document edits the existing copy. Later frontends must either fail or open a new virtual copy of the document (determined by an argument to open). The virtual copy is equivalent to a new version of the document, so later efforts to recombine the independent changes of the two documents have the full support of the version comparison mechanism (described below).
When the open operation makes a copy for the second writer, it copies the state of the document as of the moment of the copy operation. This includes all the changes made by the first author. This means that locks `created' by the open operation are transparent to readers. The current transparency of locking is acceptable because it only allows the owner of a document to change the original version. Other users can make and edit their own versions, but they cannot edit the original.
Read-only and Read-write
Since documents will often be opened just for reading, the open operation supports two modes: read-only and read-write. The above example uses read-write capability for both authors. Reading a document does not modify the contents of a document, so multiple users can read a single copy at the same time. If the document is opened for reading, writing to the document is prevented. Otherwise a user could be trying to read a constantly changing document.
The experimental frontend supports even more complex behavior. The frontend initially opens documents for read-only. It assumes the typical case in which users only wish to browse the information. Any user can start editing the contents of a document, however. The frontend then closes the read-only connection and opens the document again for writing. The reopening of the document will fail if any other users were reading the same document, or if any open operations on that document happened between the close and the open operations. If the open fails, the frontend can open a new version and redisplay the possibly modified contents.
Parallel Versions
When two authors separately edit different versions of the same document, they create parallel versions. To recombine these into one version, the authors must compare their versions to discover conflicting changes, and regions unchanged by either author. Udanax Green's version comparison operation describes the data shared by two documents due to operations which explicitly copy contents. It describes the contents retained by parallel versions from their mutual ancestor, the data retained by a sequential version from its ancestor, or the contents copied from one document to another.
Comparison
The comparison operation does not compare the contents directly. The version comparison operation must apply to ANY byte representable data. Content comparison algorithms such as Unix diff use data-specific heuristics, so they cannot possibly work for all types of data. Also, the topological nature of connections in Udanax Green add differences to apparently identical contents. For example, imagine a document which describes a particular database record structure. The document contains enough spaces for every character of every field. The frontend defines each field by attaching a link to the characters in the field. The frontend can now rearrange the fields in a record simply by swapping the contents. Like any editing process, the user might want to compare alternatives, undo changes, or check differences between the current and past versions. Content comparison reveals nothing. The Udanax Green comparison operation shows the actual field differences.
