[Zope-dev] time-travel how to?

Shane Hathaway shane@digicool.com
Tue, 05 Dec 2000 11:05:28 -0500


Damien Morton wrote:
> 
> How do you access the fabled time travel features of Zope?
> 
> Reading through the source I see that you can open a database in read only
> mode and specify the point in time that that view is for.
> 
> Would it be possible to mount the same data.fs multiple times in read-only
> mode, each mounting with a different temporal view?
> 
> Is there some other mechanism by which the time-travel feature can be
> accessed? Ideally it would be possible to create a temporal view of the
> database much like one would create a version, but that the view would be
> enabled by traversing through that view in the URL.

See the history tab of DTML methods.

> For example, http://foo.com/nov3/x/y/z would be a view of the database at
> nov3, where the actual time and date of the view would be specified in the
> nov3 object.

That would be spiffy!  It would be fun to visit:

http://mysite.com/HistoricalRevisions/2000Jan01/manage

It's also very doable.  Of course, time travel restrictions would have
to be imposed.  (Zope will produce a "temporal paradox" exception if you
do the right thing.  It's something of an easter egg IMHO.)

Shane