A little retrospective now that I've settled into Mercurial. Forget forget files combined with hg remove. It's crazy and bass-ackwards. You can use hg remove once you've established that something is in a forget file that isn't forgetting because the item in question was tracked before the original repo was created. Note that hg remove effectively clears tracked status but it also schedules the file for deletion in anything that gets changes from your repo. If ignored, however the tracking deactivation still happens but that delete-me change set won't ever reach another repo and for some reason will never delete in yours which IMO is counter-intuitive. It is a very sure sign that somebody and I don't know these guys, is UNWILLING TO COMPROMISE ON DUH DESIGN PROBLEMS. The important thing to understand is that you don't determine what's important, Mercurial does. Except when you're merging on a pull of course. It's entirely reasonable then. But I digress...
Ignore-file/remove is a good combo for already-tracked but very specific files you want forgotten but if you're dealing with a larger quantity of built files determined with broader patterns it's not worth the risk. Just go with a double-repo and pull -u from the remote repo to your syncing repo and then pull -u commits from your working repo and merge in a repo whose sole purpose is to merge changes and pass them on in a place where your not-quite tracked or untracked files (behavior is different when pulling rather than pushing of course because hey, why be consistent?) won't cause frustration. Trust me. The idea that you should have to have two repos just to get 'er done offends for good reason AND THAT SO MANY OF US ARE DOING IT should suggest a serioush !##$ing design problem, but it's much less painful than all the other awful things that will make you regret seeking a sensible alternative.
And use hg help. It's actually Mercurial's best feature and often better than the internet (which I don't fault for confusion on the matter of all things hg) for getting answers to everything that is confusing and counter-intuitive in this VCS.
/retrospective
# switch to regexp syntax.
syntax: regexp
#Config Files
#.Net
^somecompany\.Net[\\/]MasterSolution[\\/]SomeSolution[\\/]SomeApp[\\/]app\.config
^somecompany\.Net[\\/]MasterSolution[\\/]SomeSolution[\\/]SomeApp_test[\\/]App\.config
#and more of the same following
And in my mercurial.ini at the root of my user directory
[ui]
username = ereppen
merge = bcomp
ignore = C:\<path to user ignore file>\.hgignore-config
Context:
I wrote an auto-config utility in node. I just want changes to the files it changes to get ignored. We have two teams and both aren't on the same page with making this a universal thing so it needs to be user-specific for now.
The config file is in place and pointed at by my ini file. I clone. I run the config utility and change the files and stat reveals a list of every single file with an M next to it. I thought it was the utf-8 thing and explicitly set the file to utf-16 little endian. I don't think I'm doing with the regEx that any modern flavor of regEx worth actually calling regEx wouldn't support.
The .hgignore file has no effect for files that are tracked. Its function is to stop you from seeing files you want ignored listed as "untracked". If you're seeing "M" then they're already added (you got them with the clone) so .hgignore does nothing.
The usual way config files that differ from machine to machine are handled is to put a app.config.sample in source control, have app.config in .hgignore and have people do a copy when they're making their config edits.
Alternately if your config files allow for includes and overrides you end them with include app-local.config and override any settings in a app-local.config which you don't add and do include in .hgignore.
Related
I decided to start using the Git version control system for my C++ project. I'm new to version control. For the trunk things are simple, I just commit all the project versions I have. I kept each version as a separate folder because I knew I'd very soon use Git. But I encountered a problem with my branches.
At some stage of the development, I decided there's one class I want to develop in a branch. Without version control, I had to use make a "manual" branch. I copied the most recent header file and source file of that class to a separate folder and started working there. I made several versions there to work with simultaneously. One version was the first prototype of the class according to the plan (for which I made the "branch"). Then I added another file, in which I copied the first one but removed things that seemed to not be necessary. This way I have 2 versions, one with all my ideas and features, the the other one just with what I really use in my code, without what's not in use at the moment.
But then I added more. As development went on, I decided it may be a good idea to make that class a template. So I added a third version, which is just like the second one, but now some functionality implemented using polymorphism is implemented using a template. And I can't tell yet which version is the best, as it's too early to tell, so I want to have all 3 together.
Then I made another special file: A copy of the third version header file, in which each line can be marked or not marked. Marked means I use that specific method or I'm sure it's going to be in use very soon, otherwise the line isn't marked.
Then, some time later, I started a new branch. And for that branch I needed a new version of that class developed in the first branch. So I just copied one of the versions to the new branch's folder and started working there. Now again I had some kind of auxiliary file: I had 2 files, one from which I delete class methods I use, and one into which I write new methods I need to have.
Now I want to start using Git and I wonder: For all the project's text files, plans, diagrams, etc., it obvious - I keep them outside the Git repo. Whenever collaborative editing is needed I can set up a wiki or something like that. But for all those copies of the same header file, and for those auxiliary "marked" files, what do I do with them? I mean, it's fine by me to have them all in a branch, but what happens when I merge a branch into the trunk? I don't want to have all these copies and versions and lists, just the one final class file I've made.
On one hand, these are C++ source files used while coding. On the other hand they're not part of the pure source code of the software package, they just help me while I work but will never get compiled because in the end there's just the final version of the class which I chose to merge, and all other aux files, lists, etc. are kept just for reference.
What would be the best thing to do?
Thanks for reading my long story :)
EDIT: It's a local repo on my personal computer
Always keep documentation in same repository as source code. If you do not, your documentation will rot. It is becouse documentation is written agains some version of your software, so it has to develop the same way as software develops.
If your documentation is automaticaly generated or compiled into another format, commit only source data, makefile and configuration of generator, just like you do with source code.
What you describe is the normal use of branches: You have your master branch ("official", if it where) and a branch to develop a new feature (it doesn't really have to live in a separate directory, if I understand you correctly). Periodically you synchronize the feature branch with the master, either by rebasing it on the master or merging its changes in. In its turn, you can well have subordinate branches in which you try out approaches to develop the feature, handled with respect to the feature branch just like that one respect to the master. But in that case you have to be careful whenever you rebase.
You should keep any data that isn't easy to recreate in the repository, be it source code, documentation or even design sketches. Stuff that can be recreated (object code, automatically formated documentation, ...) should be kept out (any change there will create a difference to be checked in). Your repository (particularly not published branches) is your own workspace, it can be all the messy you like.
Take a look at the book mentioned at the git homepage.
Well, that’s clearly documentation and not source code, so you should separate it from your source code. As your documentation seems to be branch dependent, you should still check it into the repo, but in a separate doc directory.
About the merging: How a merge works is up to you in the end. Git just has a default merge strategy which is what most people want most of the time. But if you say that a merge into the main branch should just bring the code and not the docu, then that’s fine. Just merge that way:
git merge mybranch --no-commit
rm -rf **docu-dir**
git add -A
git commit
how do we rename .xaml and .cs files?
would like to be able to keep development in synch with the original sketchflow. i.e. sketchflow has features such as the ability to collect client feedback on a per screen basis, etc.
... I kind of answered my own question here, so I'll post it as a follow up. Asked the original question 9 hours ago on the MS site without response... still trying to work out where the best place is to talk to the community, so sorry for the duplicate.
THE ANSWER (IS THERE A BETTER ONE?)
Context: Sketchflow is a prototyping tool. In large teams possibly you want to keep the prototype seperate from the finished version, or there's a large prototyping phase.
My view is that I really like Sketchflow. It's one of the coolest things I've seen for a while (well done Microsoft).
... so for me, I want the prototype to become a the finished product. I want the designers to step in and make transitions whenever they want. I want the designers to kick the process off, and the developers to put in the detail. I'd like our customers to be able to post feedback at any time during the build process. btw: get your developers to check out MVVM. It's very cool.
My bet is that the feedback could get lost if you make a breaking change (a file rename) -- so just beware of that. That wont be a problem for us. We'll get our file names to make sense and then mostly leave it alone. Of course MS could fix this this by creating a globally unique id (Guid) for each screen that is created. Perhaps they've done this already. If someone from MS reads this, please put this on your requested features list.
THE ANSWER:
So here is the answer that works for me:
don't try to hand-edit the xaml / cs, as all the cross referencing that you might be doing with behaviors will break if you aren't really careful. Typical files that need to be modified: .csproj, Sketch.Flow, xxxx.xaml, and xxxx.cs.
To auto do it, download a tool like Ultraedit. Alternatively, you might be able to just use VS 2010 (untested).
Steps with ultraedit:
(BACKUP YOUR PROJECT FIRST)
Search/Replace In Files...
Find in files... "Screen_1_19"
Replace with... "Welcome"
In Files/Types... "."
Directory...
Match Whole Word Only
Hit "Start"
follow the prompts
rename the files (.xaml & .cs) to be Welcome.???? (where ???? is .xaml or .cs) . Since I use SVN, this step gets done for me in one step (no big deal).
If using VS2010 for steps 1 through 8, be careful do longer string replacements first e.g. Screen_1_19 before Screen_1. I think VS treats _ as a word break. On ultraedit you'll be fine.
If there's interest, in the spare time that I don't currently have, I could release a quick tool to do this on codeplex.
** note: because we are working with XML and XML is very particular about being correct, I close expression blend down, and then reopen it again after the replace/rename to see if I was successful + my screen map still has all the flow lines still drawn in.
answer is above in the body of the question.
I'm looking for a good efficient method for scanning a directory structure for changed files in Windows XP+. Something like how git does it is exactly what I'm looking for, when running a git status it displays all modified files, all new (untracked) files and deleted files very quickly which is exactly what I would like to do.
I have a basic model up and running which performs an initial scan and stores all filenames, size, dates and attributes.
On a subsequent scan it checks if the size, attributes or date have changed and marks as a changed file.
My issue now comes in detecting moved and deleted files. Is there a tried and tested method for this sort of thing? I'm struggling to come up with a good method.
I should mention that it will eventually use ReadDirectoryChangesW to monitor files and alert the user when something changes so a full scan is really a last resort after the initial scan.
Thanks,
J
EDIT: I think I may have described the problem badly. The issue I'm facing is not so much detecting the changes - I have ReadDirectoryChangesW() using IOCP on multiple threads to detected when a change happens, the issue is more what to do with the information. For example, a moved file is reported as a delete followed by a create and a rename comes in 2 parts, old name, followed by new name. So what I'm asking is how to differentiate between the delete as part of a move and an actual delete. I'm guessing buffering the changes and processing batches would be an option but feels messy.
In native code FileSystemWatcher is replaced by ReadDirectoryChangesW. Using this properly is not simple, there is a good baseline to build off here.
I have used this code in a previous job and it worked pretty well. The Win32 API itself (and FileSystemWatcher) are prone to problems that are described in the docs and also discussed in various places online, but impact of those will depending on your use cases.
EDIT: the exact change is indicated in the FILE_NOTIFY_INFORMATION structure that you get back - adds, removals, rename data including old and new name.
I voted Liviu M. up. However, another option if you don't want to use the .NET framework for some reason, would be to use the basic Win32 API call FindFirstChangeNotification.
You can use USN journaling if you are up to it, that is pretty low level (NTFS level) stuff.
Here you can find detailed information and source code included. It is written in C# but most of it is PInvoking C/C++ functions.
I'm using Mercurial for development of quite a large C++ project which takes about 30 minutes to get built from the scratch(while incremental builds are very quick).
I'm usually trying to implement each new feature in the new branch(using "hg clone") and I may have several new features developed during the day and it's quickly getting very boring to wait for the new feature branch to get built.
Are there any recipes to somehow re-use object files from other already built branches?
P.S. in git there are named branches within the same repository which make re-usage of the existing object files possible for the build system, however I prefer the simpler Mercurial separate branches model...
I suggest using ccache as a way to speed up compilation of (mostly) the same code tree. The way it works is as following:
You define a place to be used as the cache (and the maximum cache size) by using the CCACHE_DIR environment variable
Your compiler should be set to ccache ${CC} or ccache ${CXX}
ccache takes the output of ${CC} -E and the compilation flags and uses that as a base for its hash. As long as the compiler flags, source file and the headers are all unchanged, the object file will be taken from cache, saving valuable compilation time.
Note that this method speeds up compilation of any source file that eventually produces the same hash. If you share source files across projects, ccache will handle them as well.
If you already use distcc and wish to use it with ccache, set the CCACHE_PREFIX environment variable to distcc.
Using ccache sped up our source tree compilation around tenfold.
A simple way to speed up your builds could be to use a local "build directory" on your disk. This way you can checkout into this directory and start the build. The first time it will take the full time, but after that it will (hopefully) only rebuild the files where the source code changed.
My Localbranch extension was designed partly around this use case. It uses a single working directory, but I think it's simpler than git. It's essentially a mechanism for maintaining multiple repository clones under one working directory, where only one is active at a given time.
Woops, I missed your P.S. where you don't like having multiple named branches in the same repo and that you prefer separate clones.. sorry about that.
I too have somewhat large C++ projects and the clone-per-feature workflow didn't work for me very well. Firstly, I had to close down my Vim session and then reopen (many of the same) files once I've created the clone. Secondly, like you said, a lot of code must be recompiled unnecessarily. Thirdly, I have to keep track of where I've pushed to and pulled from - gets confusing when you start a new feature and then get sidetracked onto a new one. Before you know it you have many clones and not sure which ones need to be pushed back to your main.
You definitely don't want to use named branches (as I'm sure you know) to handle this as they are quite permanent.
What you need are bookmarks: https://www.mercurial-scm.org/wiki/BookmarksExtension
Bookmarks allow you to create lightweight (and otherwise anonymous) branches per feature by facilitating the naming of heads in your repo. These heads would normally be unnamed and you would have to look at the output of 'hg log' or use some graphical tool to find the revision numbers for the tip of your feature-branch. With bookmarks you can name them descriptive names like 'my-cool-feature' or 'bugfix-392'.
If you like the idea of bookmarks, I'd also recommend my own extension called 'tasks': http://bitbucket.org/alu/hgtasks. This extension works like bookmarks but adds some more functionality. It allows you created feature-branches (now called tasks) and suppress the pushing of incomplete tasks. This is handy when you have a few feature-branches at once. You may not be ready to push your 'my-cool-feature' task, but 'bugfix-392' is ready to go. Because tasks track a set of changesets (and not just one 'tip' changeset) there are some things you can do with tasks that you can't with bookmarks. See an example workflow here: http://x.zpuppet.org/2009/03/09/mercurial-tasks-extension/.
Mercurial also has local named branches, see the hg branch command.
If you insist on using hg clone to do branchy development, I guess you could try creating a folder link (shortcut under windows) in your repo to a shared obj folder. This will work with hg clone, but I'm not sure your build tool will pick it up.
Otherwise, you probably keep all your repos in one folder - just put your obj folder there (it shouldn't be under source control anyways, imo). Use relative paths to refer to it.
A word of warning: many .o symbol tables (or equivalent) contain the full path name of the source file. If that other file changes (or if the path is not visible from the new directory) you may encounter weirdness when debugging.
I have a source code of about 500 files in about 10 directories. I need to refactor the directory structure - this includes changing the directory hierarchy or renaming some directories.
I am using svn version control. There are two ways to refactor: one preserving svn history (using svn move command) and the other without preserving. I think refactoring preserving svn history is a lot easier using eclipse CDT and SVN plugin (visual studio does not fit at all for directory restructuring).
But right now since the code is not released, we have the option to not preserve history.
Still there remains the task of changing the include directives of header files wherever they are included. I am thinking of writing a small script using python - receives a map from current filename to new filename, and makes the rename wherever needed (using something like sed). Has anyone done this kind of directory refactoring? Do you know of good related tools?
If you're having to rewrite the #includes to do this, you did it wrong. Change all your #includes to use a very simple directory structure, at mot two levels deep and only using a second level to organize around architecture or OS dependencies (like sys/types.h).
Then change your make files to use -I include paths.
Voila. You'll never have to hack the code again for this, and compiles will blow up instantly if something goes wrong.
As far as the history part, I personally find it easier to make a clean start when doing this sort of thing; archive the old one, make a new repository v2, go from there. The counterargument is when there is a whole lot of history of changes, or lots of open issues against the existing code.
Oh, and you do have good tests, and you're not doing this with a release coming right up, right?
I would preserve the history, even if it takes a small amount of extra time. There's a lot of value in being able to read through commit logs and understand why function X is written in a weird way, or that this really is an off-by-one error because it was written by Oliver, who always gets that wrong.
The argument against preserving the history can be made for the following users:
your code might have embarrassing things, like profanity and fighting among developers
you don't care about the commit history of your code, because it's not going to change or be maintained in the future
I did some directory refactoring like this last year on our code base. If your code is reasonable structured at the beginning, you can do about 75-90% of the work using scripts written in your language of choice (I used Perl). In my case, we were moving from set of files all in one big directory, to a series of nested directories depending on namespaces. So, a file that declared the class protocols::serialization::SerializerBase was located in src/protocols/serialization/SerializerBase. The mapping from the old name to the new name was trivial, so that doing a find and replace on #includes in every source file in the tree was trivial, although it was a big change. There were a couple of weird edge cases that we had to fix by hand, but that seemed a lot better than either having to do everything by hand or having to write our own C++ parser.
Hacking up a shell script to do the svn moves is trivial. In tcsh it's foreach F ( $FILES ) ... end to adjust a set of files. Perl & Python offer better utility.
It really is worth saving the history. Especially when trying to track down some exotic bug. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, or some such junk...
As for altering all the files... There was a similar question just the other day over at:
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/573430/
c-include-header-path-change-windows-to-linux/573531#573531