source: tailor/README @ 212

Revision 212, 6.3 KB checked in by lele@…, 8 years ago (diff)

Added a 'Shortcomings' section

Line 
1About
2=====
3
4tailor.py is a tool to migrate changesets between CVS, Subversion, and
5darcs repositories.
6
7This script makes it easier to keep the upstream changes merged in
8a branch of a product, storing needed information such as the upstream
9URI and revision in special properties on the branched directory.
10
11The following ascii-art illustrates the usual scenario::
12
13                           +------------+            +------------+
14  +--------------+         | Immutable  |            | Working    |
15  | Upstream CVS |-------->| darcs      |----------->| darcs      |
16  | repository   | tailor  | repository | darcs pull | repository |
17  +--------------+         +------------+            +------------+
18                                                           |^         
19                                                           ||
20                                                           ||
21                                                           v|
22                                                          User
23
24Ideally you should be able to swap and replace "CVS server" and "darcs
25repository" with any combination of `CVS`, `Subversion` and `darcs`.
26
27
28Installation
29============
30
31tailor.py is written in Python, and thus Python must be installed on
32your system to use it. Since it relays on external tools to do the
33real work such as `cvs`, `darcs` and `svn`, they need to be installed
34as well.
35
36Make tailor.py executable::
37
38 $ chmod +x tailor.py
39
40You can either run tailor.py where it is currently located, or move it
41along with the vcpx directory to a location in your PATH.
42
43
44Examples
45========
46
471. Bootstrap a new tailored project, starting at upstream revision 10::
48
49  $ tailor.py -b -s svn -R http://svn.server/Product -r 10 ~/darcs/MyProduct
50
512. Bootstrap a new product, fetching from CVS and storing under SVN:
52   this will create the directory "~/svnwc/cmfcore"; "~/svnwc" must be
53   already under SVN::
54
55  $ tailor.py --source-kind cvs --target-kind svn --bootstrap \
56              --repository :pserver:cvs.zope.org:/cvs-repository \
57              --module CMF/CMFCore ~/svnwc/cmfcore
58
593. Showing each command bootstrap a new DARCS repos in
60   "~/darcs/cmftopic" under which the upstream module will be
61   extracted as "CMFTopic" (ie, the last component of the module
62   name)::
63
64  $ tailor.py -D -b -R :pserver:anonymous@cvs.zope.org:/cvs-repository/ \
65              -m CMF/CMFTopic ~/darcs/cmftopic
66             
674. Merge upstream changes since last update/bootstrap::
68
69  $ tailor.py ~/svnwc/MyProduct
70
71
72Resolving conflicts
73===================
74
75Should one of the replayed changes generate any conflict, tailor.py
76will prompt the user to correct them. This is done after the upstream
77patch has been applied and before the final commit on the target
78system, so that manually tweaking the conflict can produce a clean
79patch.
80
81
82Shortcomings
83============
84
85Tailor currently suffers of the following reported problems:
86
87a) It does not handle "empty" CVS checkouts, in other words you cannot
88   bootstrap a project that has nothing in its CVS upstream
89   repository, or from a point in time where this condition was true.
90
91b) There is a bug related to the understanding of ``svn log --xml``
92   output that dirupt ``svn move`` upstream operation.
93
94This list will always be incomplete, but I'll do my best to keep it
95short :-)
96
97
98Tailor's metadata
99=================
100
101To do its work, tailor needs some information about your source tree,
102such as the upstream repository URL and the current revision of the
103sources on your harddisk.
104
105In the simpler case, tailor keeps this information in a file called
106`tailor.info`, one for each tailored project, that is a very simple
107text document, with the following information, one per line:
108
1091. Upstream repository kind (either "cvs", "darcs" or "svn)
1102. Target repository kind (the same as above)
1113. The name of the "module" that's been tailored
1124. The URL of the upstream repository (that may not be an URL, for cvs...)
1135. The current revision, from the upstream point of view, of the sources
1146. The subdirectory that contains the checked out upstream tree,
115   either that given with with the `--subdir` option or computed
116   taking the last part of the module name.
117
118This is everything tailor needs, to be able to keep going from where it
119left last time.
120
121
122Config file format
123------------------
124
125When your project is composed by multiple upstream modules, it is
126easier to collect such information in a single file. This is done by
127specifying the `--configfile` option with a file name as argument. In
128this case, tailor will read/write the above information from a
129standard Python dictionary stored in the given file.
130
131The dictionary is keyed on the relative position of each project, and
132each entry carries the same information described above.
133
134Here's an example config file entry::
135
136 {'plone/atcontenttypes': {'module': 'ATContentTypes',
137                           'source_kind': 'cvs',
138                           'subdir': 'ATContentTypes',
139                           'target_kind': 'darcs',
140                           'upstream_repos': ':ext:cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/collective',
141                           'upstream_revision': '2004-11-24 19:42:06 by ctheune'}}
142
143By convention, config files are named with the extension ".tailor",
144but this is not enforced.
145
146In the example above, 'plone/atcontenttypes' is a directory where the
147target source will be stored. The keys such 'module', 'source_kind',
148etc correspond to options of the same name.
149
150When using a config file, tailor will perform its job on each project
151contained in the dictionary.
152
153
154Further help
155============
156
157See the output of tailor.py -h for some further tips.  There's also a
158`wiki page`_ that may give you some other hints.
159
160.. _wiki page:
161   http://www.scannedinavian.org/DarcsWiki/ConvertingFromSubversion
162
163I will be more than happy to answer any doubt, question or suggestion
164you may have on it. I'm usually hanging as "lelit" on the IRC channel
165devoted to darcs on the `freenode.net` network. Do not hesitate to
166contact me either by email or chatting there.
167
168
169Author
170======
171
172Lele Gaifax <lele@nautilus.homeip.net>
173
174
175About this document
176===================
177
178This document and most of the internal documention use the
179reStructuredText format so that it can be easily converted into other
180formats, such as HTML.  For more information about this, please see:
181
182  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html
183
184
185.. vim:ft=rest
186.. Local Variables:
187.. mode: rst
188.. End:
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