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06.24.03
 By
Jennifer Vesperman
CVS is a useful version control tool. Version control is not the only aspect
of building a project or maintaining a service, though. This article is about
the hooks CVS includes to allow you to expand it and integrate it with other tools.
Five files in the CVSROOT directory of the repository enable you to run
arbitrary scripts when a file is committed or tagged. Common uses for these files
include interfacing CVS to a bug management system, a change tracker, or another
tool; enforcing compliance with a project policy; and triggering processes such
as automated export programs.
CVS uses one file during tagging and four files during committing:
commitinfo before the files in a directory are committed.loginfo after the files in a directory are committed.verifymsg after the log message is entered, but before files
are committed.rcsinfo for the template for the log message in a commit.taginfo before each tag or rtag operation.
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Syntax
Each line of these files should contain a rule with the following syntax: name_pattern
action. name_pattern should match a directory in the repository,
and CVS will apply this rule to all files in that directory. The pattern used
is a regular expression, described in info cvs. CVS tests the pattern
against the directory's relative path, starting at the repository root directory.
There are two special patterns, ALL and DEFAULT. An
ALL rule is used on files in any directory. A DEFAULT
rule is used if no other patterns (excluding ALL) match.
action is a command-line template for the path to a script (or commit
message template), plus any parameters required for that script or template. The
script or template must be able to read from standard input (stdin).
CVS will append its own parameters to actions.
Lines in scripting files that start with the hash symbol (#) are
comments and are ignored.
commitinfo
commitinfo scripts are often used to verify whether checked-in files
conform to company standards or to enforce exclusive development. CVS passes the
relative directory path and a list of all files in that directory involved in
the commit as parameters. If the action of the rule returns a non-zero value,
the commit does not proceed.
CVS makes a set of normal-format files from the data it receives from the CVS
client, storing them in a temporary directory. If the action reads (or tries to
modify) the file, it reads the file in the temporary directory. Any modifications
are discarded after the action is processed.
loginfo
The loginfo file is most often used to control where (aside from
the RCS files) the log information from a commit is sent. It can also be used
to trigger actions, such as notifying all developers of changes, maintaining a
file that logs a record of changes, or exporting the changed files to a file server.
CVS passes the log message from the commit as well as the repository path being
committed to, followed by an expanded format string, all on standard input. The
format string is part of the action and controls the information that CVS passes
to the script or command. The string consists of a % followed by
a space, a single variable, or a set of variables enclosed in braces {}.
The variables are:
s- Expands to the name of the current file being processed.
V- Expands to the file's revision number prior to the commit.
v- Expands to the file's revision number after the commit.
When CVS process the format string, the output is in the form variable_expansion
[variable_expansion...]. CVS will generate a variable expansion for each
file that was committed, consisting of a comma-separated set of strings. %{sV}
would be expanded to a string like main.c,1.3. Dollar signs ($),
backticks (`), backslashes (")
in the repository path or filename will be escaped with backslashes.
verifymsg
The scripts in the verifymsg file often either check or modify the
log message you enter when you commit files. CVS passes the path to a temporary
file containing the commit log message and copies the log message on standard
input (stdin). If the script returns a non-zero value, the commit
does not proceed.
The script can modify the log message. The RereadLogAfterVerify option
in the config file in the repository's CVSROOT directory
determines whether the original or the modified log message is used.
The ALL pattern is not supported in the verifymsg file.
Click Here to Read the Full Article
About the Author:
| Jennifer Vesperman is the author of
Essential CVS. She writes for the O'Reilly Network, the Linux Documentation
Project, and occasionally Linux.Com. As a programmer and system administrator,
she currently works with Cybersource, an Australian IT consulting firm. She is
the current Coordinator for LinuxChix, an advocacy and support group that focuses
on women who use and develop open source programs (especially Linux). |
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