Xcvs is a web-based CVS tracking tool. Each commit (check-in) to a CVS
repository is viewed as one logical, coherent change. The web interface allows
one to query changes by branch, authors, dates, and etc. and view the content of
each change as a patch file.
OVERVIEW
--------
Xcvs is a web-based CVS tracking tool. Each commit (check-in) to a CVS
repository is viewed as one logical, coherent change. The web interface
allows one to query the changes by branch, author, date/time, and etc.,
and view the content of each change as a patch file.
It is possible Xcvs can be furhter expanded to view labeling and branching
events as well.
We assume CVS repository is well behaved in the following sense:
. No manual deletion or twicking of revision tags.
(Somewhat relaxed now: odd revisions may get wrong diff or no diff!)
. Deleting branch is tolerated, although change history on deleted branches
cannot be completely re-constructed. An revisions made on deleted
branches are lumped together under "ZOMBIE" branch.
. A tag always labels the whole tree of a branch that corresponds to
the snap-shot of the tree at one moment. No cross-branch check-outs,
and no out-of-order revision check-outs.
COVEATS
-------
. All date/time are in UTC time, with a copule of exceptions.
- 'cvs log' command '-d' option takes local time.
- web interface uses server localtime when a timezone is not specified
xcvs update file also stores the last update time in UTC.
. Not bother with cvs over ssh. It is just too inconvenient to be
practical.
THEORY OF OPERATIONS
--------------------
. A revision refers to one change made to one file, denoted by a file
name, the revision number after the change, author, date and log.
From these info we can derive the knowledge about the previous
revision number and branch name. Further we can identify which patchset
this revision belongs to.
Revisions are obtained while we parse through the log. They are
stored in "revision" table in database. Preivous revisions are not
retrieved into memory during each update because they are not actively
needed during update.
Since we allow LAST_UPDATE_CUSHION, it is possible we will parse some
revisions that are already in database. For this, we use two methods
to check :
. up front we figure the latest revision date/time in database.
Any revisions later than thatdate/time are indeed new ones
. for the rest, we do a live sql query to check if it is in db.
Note it is possible to have revisions earlier than last update date/time
but not in database.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2004/05/07
Notes for v0.2.1 (beta) release
New features:
. Handle odd revisions (such as 2.1, 2.0) gracefully
. Truncate check-in comment if its size exceeds 64K in size.
Bug fixes:
. Handle non-empty "description:" field gracefully.
. Bookmark was missing two session variables (dbname and patchdir)
. Increase SQL query string size to accomodate big check-in comment.
What is next:
. Same as the last release. :)
. This version has successfully parsed some huge CVS trees such as gcc, glibc
and etc.. I think it is ready for prime time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2004/04/05
Notes for v0.2.0 (beta) release
New features:
. CVS_FILE_LEAD_PATH can be left empty in the config file. xcvs will
try to compute the path at run-time.
. No more xcvs work files. The misc cache info is now stored in the
database. As a result user no longer needs to specify WORK_ROOT
in the config file.
. Renamed some tables so that they all use singular forms.
. This version is not compatible with earlier versions. The protocol is
bumped to 2. You must re-generate the database and patchsets in order
to use this release.
Bug fixes:
What is next:
. Will try to gnu-lize xcvs, add man pages and etc..
. Wait for a while, and I think it is ready for v1.0.0 production release.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2004/03/26
Notes for v0.1.3 (beta) release
New features:
. Support query patchsets by file name
. Use popen()/pclose() to execute cvs command. No more .xcvs_log .xcvs_diff
files.
. Provide an admin's option to display patchsets in reverse chronical
order, which is now the default behavior.
. Provide a way to bookmark a search (not the search results, btw)
Bug fixes:
. Handle 1.1.0.1 branch correctly. Revisions on this branch were not
expected before and would cause an assertion failure with 0.1.2.
. A patchset could contain more than one revisions of the same file.
Fixed in this release.
. When two check-in are happening almost at the same time, we might
generate more than two patchsets in 0.1.2. In this release, we
will only generate two patchsets.
. In 0.1.2 we drop revisions that are too close to cut-off time.
In 0.1.3 we drop patchsets that are too close to cut-off time
and their associated revisions. This is more correct.
What is next?
. We will break the protocol and make another beta release v0.2.0
. After that I think we are ready for v1.0.0 production release.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2004/02/09
Notes for v0.1.2 (beta) release
What is new:
. Add "-n" command line option, which specifies to create/delete
databases. Otherwise, we can live with database created by system admin.
. We now display program name, version, database name, last update date
in the selection box.
. Add help (?) link to various search fields in the selection box.
. Date/time now takes more relaxed formats in the selection box.
. Add safe_session_start() to guard against expired session case.
. Escape file names before we do system() to make it safer.
. We now take a directory argument for '-c' option.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
2004/01/25
Notes for v0.1.1 (beta) release
First official release. System seems to be running fine on a few
installations.
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