handling zip files

[Franklin Siler]

On Dec 15, 2013, at 07:19, Steve Barnes <gadgetsteve at hotmail.com> wrote:

> IMHO the one type of binary file that it almost never makes sense to track is a .zip file - track the contents and generate the .zip file on the fly either using pythons zipfile module or using one of the command line zip file tools.

This is a very pure but ultimately unhelpful mode of thinking.  The reality is that file handlers for non-text files would be incredibly useful: I would LOVE if there was easy support for sqlite files, for example.  I’m working on unmarshaling them to text, compare with vimdiff, and merge back to binary when finished.
  I think there are many use cases where it makes perfect sense to track other binaries, including .zip and associated formats, such as Open Documents, in version control.
  I hear the frequent refrain “use an artifact repo!”, but I have yet to see one that doesn’t suck (tm).

Cheers,

Frank Siler
Siler Industrial Analytics
314.799.9405