SQLite & Versioning Systems

Question

Foreword: I am not trying to write an alternative either to Subversion or to any other versioning system.

I wonder if SQLite has what it takes to replace the usual repositories of versioning systems by a single-file database file where different versions are stored as BLOBs?

Michael J. Barber · Answer 1 · 2011-07-11T05:29:03.383

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Fossil is a version control system implemented in SQLite. It uses a single database, storing the versions as BLOBs.

edited Jul 11 '11 at 05:29

answered Jul 10 '11 at 18:47

Michael J. Barber

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According to http://fossil-scm.org/index.html/doc/trunk/www/tech_overview.wiki the bulk of the repository database is stored as BLOBs. – ericwa Jul 10 '11 at 18:52
@ericwa - Thanks, I've amended the answer to say that. – Michael J. Barber Jul 11 '11 at 05:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-16T17:36:51.523

Not all version control systems use the filesystem.

In fact, one such distributed version control system, Monotone, already uses SQLite for storage. The FAQ Why an embedded SQL database, instead of Berkeley DB? gives some rational for this choice. The FAQ doesn't address "why not filesystem storage" though.

Even SVN, at least historically, supports an alternate BDB repository data-store. While this is not SQLite it is easy to imagine that SQLite can function as a "super" BDB that supports SQL as an interface. (Actually, BDB can even be used as an SQLite back-end, for a fee :-)

Keep in mind that, no matter where the data (diffs/deltas) is stored it all ends up as some form of "BLOB" -- BDB value, data in a file, or BLOB column in a[n SQLite] database.

Happy coding

SQLite & Versioning Systems

2 Answers2