py2exe and library.zip

[David Bolen]

Peter Hansen <peter at engcorp.com> writes:

> Do you know that Subversion has (as I understand it) a fairly
> intelligent binary file comparison routine, and it will (again, as I
> understand it) not transmit the entire contents of the zip file but
> would actually send only the portions that have changed?  At least,
> that's if the file isn't compressed in some way that prevents this
> algorithm from working well.  (Note to self: check if zip files that
> can be in sys.path can be compressed, and if py2exe compresses them.)

Even if the files were compressed, which has a net result similar to
randomizing the contents and will certainly extend the portion that
appears "changed", the worst that would happen is that subversion
(which does use a binary delta algorithm) would end up downloading the
single file portion of the zip file rather than the smaller change
within the file.  It should still be efficient.

But to be honest, for something like the OPs purpose, it's not clear
that an SCM is needed, since all he's trying to accomplish is bring a
remote copy up to date with the central one.  For that you could just
publish a location containing the necessary files and have the users
use something like rsync directly (which is just as efficient in terms
of a binary delta) to update their own local version.

Of course, if the Subversion server is already in place so it's a
convenient server, or if more of the user base already has the client
in place, it should work just about as well.

-- David