source: tailor/README @ 643

About
=====

Tailor is a tool to migrate changesets between ArX_, `Bazaar-NG`_
CVS_, Codeville_, Darcs_, Mercurial_, Monotone_, Tla_ and Subversion_
[#]_ repositories.

This script makes it easier to keep the upstream changes merged in
a branch of a product, storing needed information such as the upstream
URI and revision in special properties on the branched directory.

The following ascii-art illustrates the usual scenario::

                           +------------+            +------------+
  +--------------+         | Immutable  |            | Working    |
  | Upstream CVS |-------->| darcs      |----------->| darcs      |
  | repository   | tailor  | repository | darcs pull | repository |
  +--------------+         +------------+            +------------+
                                                           |^         
                                                           ||
                                                           ||
                                                           v|
                                                          User

Ideally you should be able to swap and replace "CVS server" and "darcs
repository" with any combination of the supported systems.

A more convoluted setup shows how brave people are using it to get a
two way sync::

  +----------+        +--------+        +--------+       +---------+
  |          | -----> | hybrid | darcs  |        | ----> |   my    |
  | upstream | tailor |  CVS   | -----> | master | darcs | working |
  |   CVS    | <----- | darcs  | <----- | darcs  | <---- |  darcs  |
  |          |        |  sync  | tailor |        |       |         |
  +----------+        +--------+        +--------+       +---------+
               (cron)            (cron)


.. [#] ArX, Monotone, Codeville, Mercurial and Baazar-NG systems may be
       used only as the `target` backend, since the `source` support
       isn't coded yet. Contributions on these backends will be very
       appreciated, since I do not use them enough to figure out the
       best way to get pending changes and build tailor ChangeSets out
       of them.

       To the opposite, Tla is supported only as a source system.

.. _arx: http://www.nongnu.org/arx/
.. _bazaar-ng: http://www.bazaar-ng.org/
.. _codeville: http://www.codeville.org/
.. _cvs: http://www.nongnu.org/cvs/
.. _darcs: http://www.darcs.net/
.. _mercurial: http://www.selenic.com/mercurial/
.. _monotone: http://www.venge.net/monotone/
.. _subversion: http://subversion.tigris.org/
.. _tla: http://www.gnuarch.org/arch/index.html


Installation
============

tailor is written in Python, and thus Python must be installed on
your system to use it.  It has been successfully used with Python 2.3
and 2.4.

Since it relies on external tools to do the real work such as `cvs`,
`darcs` [#]_ and `svn`, they need to be installed as well, although only
those you will actually use.

Make tailor executable::

 $ chmod +x tailor

You can either run tailor where it is currently located, or move it
along with the vcpx directory to a location in your PATH.

There's even a standard setup.py that you may use to install the
script using Python conventional distutils.

.. [#] Darcs 1.0.2 is too old, 1.0.3 is good, 1.0.4 (the fourth
       release candidate is under final testing) is recommended since
       it's faster in most operations!


Testing
=======

You can run the test suite with the following command line::

 $ tailor test -v

that runs all the tests in sequence, or::

 $ tailor test -v TailorTest

to trigger just a subset of them.


Operation
=========

tailor needs now a configuration file that collects the various bits
of information it needs to do it's job.

The simplest way of starting out a new configuration is by omitting
the --configfile command line option, and specifying the other as
needed plus --verbose: in this situation, tailor will print out an
equivalent configuration that you can redirect to a file, that you
later will pass as --configfile.


Examples
--------

1. Bootstrap a new tailored project, starting at upstream revision 10

   a. First create a config file::
   
       $ tailor --verbose -s svn -R http://svn.server/path/to/svnrepo \
                --module /Product/trunk -r 10 --subdir Product \
                ~/darcs/MyProduct > myproject.tailor

   b. Modify it as you like (mostly adjusting root-directories and the
      like)::
      
       $ emacs myproject.tailor

   c. Run tailor on it::
   
       $ tailor --configfile myproject.tailor

2. Bootstrap a new product, fetching its whole CVS repository and
   storing under SVN

   a. First create a config file::

       $ tailor --verbose --source-kind cvs --target-kind svn \
                --repository :pserver:cvs.zope.org:/cvs-repository \
                --module CMF/CMFCore --revision INITIAL \
                --target-repository file:///some/where/svnrepo \
                --target-module / cmfcore > cmfcore.tailor

   b. Modify it as you like (mostly adjusting root-directories and the
      like)::
      
       $ emacs myproject.tailor

   c. Run tailor on it once, to bootstrap the project::
   
       $ tailor -D -v --configfile myproject.tailor

      If the target repository is on the local filesystem (ie, it
      starts with ``file:///``) and it does not exist, tailor
      creates a new empty Subversion repository at the specified
      location.
      
   .. note:: Before step d) below, you may want to install an
             appropriate hook in the repository to enable the
             propset command to operate on unversioned properties,
             as described in the `svn manual`__. Then you can
             specify '--use-svn-propset' option, and tailor will
             put the original author and timestamp in the proper
             svn metadata instead of appending them to the changelog.

             Other than the annoying repository manual intervention,
             this thread__ and this other__ explain why using
             ``-r{DATE}`` may produce strange results with this setup.

   d. Run tailor again and again, to sync up with latest changes::

       $ tailor -D -v --configfile myproject.tailor
   
__ http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.0/ch05s02.html#svn-ch-5-sect-2.1
__ http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2005-07/0605.shtml
__ http://svn.haxx.se/users/archive-2005-03/0596.shtml


3. Given the configuration file shown below in `Config file format`_,
   the following command::

    $ tailor --configfile example.tailor

   is equivalent to this one::

    $ tailor --configfile example.tailor tailor

   in that they operate respectively on the default project(s) or
   the ones specified on the command line (and in this case there
   is just a single default project, tailor).

   This one instead::

    $ tailor --configfile example.tailor tailor tailor-reverse

   operates on both projects.


CVS start-revision
------------------

With CVS, you can specify a particular *point in time* specifying
a `start-revision` with a timestamp like ``2001-12-25 23:26:48 UTC``.

To specify also a particular `branch`, prepend it before the
timestamp, as in ``unstable-branch 2001-12-25 23:26:48 UTC``.


Resolving conflicts
===================

Should one of the replayed changes generate any conflict, tailor
will prompt the user to correct them. This is done after the upstream
patch has been applied and before the final commit on the target
system, so that manually tweaking the conflict can produce a clean
patch.


Shortcomings
============

Tailor currently suffers of the following reported problems:

a) It does not handle "empty" CVS checkouts, in other words you cannot
   bootstrap a project that has nothing in its CVS upstream
   repository, or from a point in time where this condition was true.

b) It's completely unsupported under Windows, evenif it now uses
   2.4's subprocess_ that seems able to hide Windows crazyness...

c) ArX, Monotone, Codeville and Baazar-NG are (currently) only
   supported as *target*; Tla only as *source*.

d) Specifying ``--subdir .`` may not work, in particular when dealing
   with remote CVS repositories (it does when the CVS repository is
   on local machine).
   
This list will always be incomplete, but I'll do my best to keep it
short :-)

.. _subprocess: http://www.lysator.liu.se/~astrand/popen5/


Config file format
==================

When your project is composed by multiple upstream modules, it is
easier to collect such information in a single file. This is done by
specifying the `--configfile` option with a file name as argument. In
this case, tailor will read the above information from a standard
Python ConfigParser file.

For example::

    [DEFAULT]
    verbose = True
    projects = tailor

    [tailor]
    root = /tmp/n9
    source = darcs:tailor
    target = svn:tailor
    dont-refill-changelogs = True
    state-file = tailor.state

    [tailor-reverse]
    root = /tmp/n9
    source = svn:tailor
    target = darcs:tailor
    state-file = reverse.state
    
    [svn:tailor]
    repository = file:///tmp/testtai
    module = /project1

    [darcs:tailor]
    repository = ~/WiP/cvsync

.. hint:: If you execute the examples above with ``--verbose --debug``
          **and without** ``--configfile``, tailor will write a
          template config filled with the values specified by the
          other options. You can redirect 


Using a Python script as configuration file
-------------------------------------------

Instead of executing ``tailor --configfile project.tailor.conf``
you can prepend the following signature to the config itself::

  #!/usr/bin/env /path/to/tailor

Giving execute mode to it will permit the launch of the tailor
process by running the config script directly::

  $ ./project.tailor.conf

When a config file is signed in this way [#]_, either you pass it as
argument to ``--configfile`` or executed as above, tailor will
actually execute it as a full fledged Python script, that may define
functions that alter the behaviour of tailor itself.

A common usage of this functionality is to define so called `hooks`,
sequences of functions that are executed at particular points in
the tailorization process.

Just to illustrate the functionality, consider the following example::

    #!/usr/bin/env tailor

    """
    [DEFAULT]
    debug = False
    verbose = True

    [project]
    target = bzrng:target
    root-directory = /tmp/prova
    state-file = tailor.state
    source = darcs:source
    before-commit = before
    after-commit = after
    start-revision = Almost arbitrarily tagging this as version 0.8

    [bzrng:target]
    python-path = /opt/src/bzr.dev
    subdir = bzrside

    [darcs:source]
    repository = /home/lele/WiP/cvsync
    subdir = darcside
    """

    def before(wd, changeset):
        print "BEFORE", changeset
        changeset.author = "LELE"
        return changeset

    def after(wd, changeset):
        print "AFTER", changeset

With the above in a `script` called say ``tester``, just doing::

    $ chmod 755 tester
    $ ./tester

will migrate the history from a darcs repository to a bazaar-ng one,
forcing the author to a well-known name :-)

.. [#] Tailor does actually read just the first two bytes from the
       file, and compare them with "#!", so you are free to choose
       whatever syntax works in your environment.


State file
----------

The state file stores two things: the last upstream revision that
has been applied to the tree, and a sequence of pending (not yet
applied) changesets, that may be empty. In the latter case, tailor
will fetch latest changes from the upstream repository.

        
Further help
============

See the output of ``tailor -h`` for some further tips.  There's
also a `wiki page`_ that may give you some other hints.  The
development of Tailor is mainly driven by user requests at this point,
and the preferred comunication media is the dedicated `mailing list`_
[#]_.

.. _wiki page:
   http://www.darcs.net/DarcsWiki/Tailor

.. _mailing list:
   http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/tailor
   
I will be more than happy to answer any doubt, question or suggestion
you may have on it. I'm usually hanging as "lelit" on the IRC channel
devoted to darcs on the `freenode.net` network. Do not hesitate to
contact me either by email or chatting there.

.. [#] I wish to say a big `Thank you` to `Zooko <zooko@zooko.com>`_,
       for hosting the ML and for supporting Tailor in several ways,
       from suggestions to bug reporting and fixing.


Authors
=======

Lele Gaifax <lele@nautilus.homeip.net>

Since I'm not currently using all the supported systems (so little
time, so many VCSs...) I'm not in position to test them out properly,
but I'll do my best to keep them in sync, maybe with your support :-)

ArX support
-----------

ArX_ support was contributed by `Walter Landry <wlandry@ucsd.edu>`_.

Bazaar-NG support
-----------------

`Bazaar-NG`_ support was contributed by `Johan Rydberg
<jrydberg@gnu.org>`_.

Monotone support
----------------

Monotone_ support was kindly contributed by `Markus Schiltknecht
<markus@bluegap.ch>`_ and further developed by `rghetta
<birrachiara@tin.it>`_.

Tla support
-----------

Tla_ support was contributed by `Robin Farine
<robin.farine@terminus.org>`_.


License
=======

Tailor is distribuited under the `GNU General Public License`__.

__ http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html


About this document
===================

This document and most of the internal documention use the
reStructuredText format so that it can be easily converted into other
formats, such as HTML.  For more information about this, please see:

  http://docutils.sourceforge.net/rst.html


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