Wiki Storage (#1132)

This proposal is about implementing new storage backends for wiki pages. This started mainly as an effort to implement the #1132 ticket, but has some more far reaching consequences, notably that I chose this as the starting point for experimenting with GenericTrac.

Also, when thinking about the proper way to make the storage backend configurable, I realized this had not to be an all or nothing choice, provided we coupled that with the WikiNamespaces idea developed in #3021. A given namespace has one storage backend, and multiple namespaces can happily coexist, for different purpose and breadth of use. See related proposal for details.

For historical background, see TighterSubversionIntegration and WhySQLite. The arguments presented there tend to defend one approach versus the other, whereas here we show that with some flexibility we can propose a palette of solutions that can cover all the needs (including the status quo ;-) ).

Implementation plan

• extract the code related to specificities of the current database model in a TraditionalWikiStorage component
• associate a storage backend to the default wiki namespace wiki: via a configuration setting:

  [wiki]
  default_storage_backend = TraditionalWikiStorage
  

• introduce a RepositoryWikiStorage component that delegates the storage operations to a VCS in a dedicated repository (the repository has to be created first)

  [wiki]
  default_storage_backend = RepositoryWikiStorage
  default_wiki_repository = wiki
  

  • this leaves open the question whether attachments should be stored there as well; maybe do that in a second step?
  • what about indexing? Do we want to special case a wiki repository or do we want to take this opportunity to implement #3541? Start with no search capabilities.
  • storage details: would be nice to have pages stored with .wiki extension (and map that to x-trac-wiki, btw), as this will make life easier for people editing pages with an editor from a checkout. In addition, this will solve the problem for subwiki pages:
    • TracDev → /TracDev.wiki
    • TracDev/Proposals/WikiStorage → /TracDev/Proposals/WikiStorage.wiki
    This will also make it possible to store attachments easily:
    • TracDev → /TracDev.wiki
    • attachment:image.png:wiki:TracDev → /TracDev.attachment/image.png
    If extra attributes have to be stored, they could be placed in a TracDev.<field> file. We should also add some extra limitations to the allowed page names, so that a checkout can work on Windows (i.e. no characters in "\\/:*?\"<>|")
• introduce a GenericWikiStorage component that implements an improved in-db storage scheme (GenericTrac#Base). This would allow to implement advanced features, like #695 and #1386.
• introduce WikiNamespaces (+ add that page to the TracGuide)
  • objectify WikiNamespaces (GenericTrac#Base), have a namespace: resolver
  • add a dispatching mechanism from a namespace to a backend, similar to the one used for repositories, possibly abstracting some code? Although this should be simpler as we could require naming the storage backend explicitly (as the backend property of the namespace. If it's RepositoryWikiStorage, then the extra repository property is also needed to indicate which repository contains the wiki).
• introduce a mixed db/repository storage, RepositoryDbWikiStorage, which combines the advantages of both the RepositoryWikiStorage system and the GenericWikiStorage (for queries and search); this is the "ultimate" combination touted in GenericTrac#History
• implement AdvancedWikiOperations for the backend that support it (RepositoryWikiStorage and RepositoryDbWikiStorage)