Source Control

It's official now. Subversion 1.6 is now out in the wild. Here's the announcement:

http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/NewsItemView?newsItemID=2261

I have found the the CollabNet install package is the best one of the bunch. You can get it here:

http://www.open.collab.net/downloads/subversion/

I'm peeved that the svnserve custom Subversion server does not have a distribution that uses it out of the box. There's a lot of people out there that do not want to use Apache to serve Subversion repositories, when IIS is already available. I'm talking about installing this on Windows, of course.

I'm going to see how hard will it be to create a Subversion distro that will install svnserve automatically for you. I will include a free "lite" version of PainlessSVN with it. I'm hoping to also add a wizard to the installation script.

I still have to wait until I get the new hard drive and OS installed again. The tracking data says that it will be delivered on the 25th of this month.

I finally nailed down the last bit of the wierd issue that I had with the custom Subversion post-commit hook that I wrote using C#. The cofiguration file was being read correctly in development, but that part of the code was failing on the Subversion server's hook directory. Here's actual exception from the Application Event Log:

Event Type:    Error
Event Source:    .NET Runtime 2.0 Error Reporting
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    5000
Date:        4/27/2008
Time:        12:06:29 AM
User:        N/A
Computer:    VULCAN
Description:
EventType clr20r3, P1 post-commit.exe, P2 1.0.0.0, P3 481409ae, P4 mscorlib, P5 2.0.0.0, P6 471ebc5b, P7 3404, P8 d8, P9 system.io.filenotfoundexception, P10 NIL.

I ended up removing all the code that used the System.Configuration namespace for native .NET 2.0 reading stuff, and using Nini instead.

This is now working correctly.

I needed to replace the rss feed functionality that a third party was providing for one of my public Subversion repositories, so I created a .NET 2.0 post-commit hook. I couldn't find anything out there that actually worked. The source for this hook is here:

Post-Commit Hook Project

To see a live feed with a nice xslt template, please visit WheelMUD's RSS Check-In Feed

I will be putting together a binary package around Monday or Tuesday.

I gotta say this is one of the coolest things I've heard in a while!

http://www.svniis.org/

This is start, but it doesn't go far enough for me. The current setup still needs an Apache server running. The author is planning on hacking WebDAV directly, if there is enough interest. I would definitely love being able to get rid of Apache altogether. That's why I run my Subversion servers with svnserve.exe

I finally got to play with the svn:externals property. This works similarly to the shared project in Visual Source Safe and JEDI VCS.

The usage for this property is a bit awkward, and took me a few tries to get it right. Basically, you have to set this property on the directory above where you want to use it. Here are the steps I took to get this working:

I'm assuming that you have TortoiseSVN installed. Right-click on the folder that will be the parent for the external linked repository. Then Select Properties. Select the Subversion tab.



Click on the Properties button. You should get this:


Click on the Add button. You should get this dialog:


I took this screenshot with the combo box list open so that you can see what's in it.

Make sure that you select svn:externals in the drop down:


The value for this property is basically a two part string. The first part is the name of the physical child directory. The second part is the actual URL to the Subversion repository. These parts are separated by a space.

You are supposed to be able to enter more than one external definition, but I haven't tested it.

Hope you find this useful, as I sure did!

One of my friends had to rebuild his computer and wanted to re-get the C# version of the source for for a program that we have been working for a while now. My heart started racing when he told me that he couldn't get to it. I tried to connect to the repository with TortoiseSVN, but I kept getting this:



I connected to the Windows 2003 server that is hosting the Subversion server with RAdmin, and noticed that svnserve.exe was running. By now, I'm very concerned. I have source backups, but no dump files. It would be quite tedious to re-load the source again. I was not looking forward to this. After some head scratching, I fired up PainlessSVN and looked at the repository. Well, what do you know, the files are still there!



At this point in time I'm quite relieved, but still quite puzzled. After some more head scratching, I decided to recreate my trail of sysadmin actions in the last day or so. I had just installed the latest Windows 2003 service patch last night. I am pretty sure that the patches did something to the services running on the box. I ended up recycling the service that is running svnserve.exe on this box. That solved the problem!

I can only imagine what sort of horror this scenario would be for somebody that has not done network/sysadmin work before. I happen to have been a Netware and Windows NT4 admin before I became a paid programmer. I really was not looking forward to reading the Subversion Red Book for the correct command-line programs. This is one time where I'm glad I dogfood my own apps!

As Bones would have said, "Damn it, Jim! I'm a doctor not a mechanic!"