What is a VCS repository?

Question

This might sound like a stupid question. It's especially stupid since I've used SVN before and I've recently used git.

But I just noticed that I don't exactly know what a repository is.

The way I see it is that a repository is a kind of container to hold the project code. I'm quite certain that's the wrong way to define it.

So how would you define a repository? Wikipedia says: storage location from which software packages may be retrieved and installed on a computer.

Does that mean you can have more than one project on a repository? If so, when would you create a new one?

Solution 1

The Wikipedia definition is correct. Think about a repository from which you would install Linux packages. As far as VCS, it stands for Version Control System and therefore a VCS repository is one for a Version Control System like Git.

Solution 2

The wikipedia definition for repository is right. The pro-git book has a very nice description about VCS. And yes, you can have more than one project in a repository.

Comments

[matanc1]

Why would I want more than one project per repository? Isn't it the point to have each project in a different one?

[twalberg]

With git, it's uncommon, although possible, to have more than one project per repository - one of the design goals of git was to make handling many small single-project repositories a lot easier. In previous days, using something like cvs or svn, it was a lot more common to have a large-ish centralized repository that contained multiple projects - the centralized structure tended to make that more economical.

[user376507]

@Shookie it is mostly use case based. You can choose to have a different repository for different projects or one single repository for different projects. I have seen both methods being followed.