How do you manage code changes?

[X-Istence]

Originally Posted by Eldarion

Thanks for the tip. I was aware of that and have been making good use of it.

Do you have any experience branching from the main revision? I have been running into some problems, mainly I don't know how to merge the branch back into the head revision.

I make branches for when something changes radically, and I want head to stay the same for a while.

[phrontist]

I use subversion with Tortise . Elite Frontier will provide SVN hosting to FIRST teams for free (they already host 116 and 1418).

[Keith Watson]

Originally Posted by Eldarion

Do you have any experience branching from the main revision? I have been running into some problems, mainly I don't know how to merge the branch back into the head revision.

I used cvs (including scripts written on top of cvs) for many, many years. We did not use branches very often. More than 95% of our stuff was done on the mainline. Branching is best used when you need to do isolated development with version control while the mainline goes through several revisions.

If you use TortoiseCVS check the User's Guide, it's simple. If you use a flavor of regular cvs look for "cvs update -j branchname". This means "join the branch to the mainline". Here is some documentation on Branching and Merging.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by Keith Watson

If you use TortoiseCVS check the User's Guide, it's simple. If you use a flavor of regular cvs look for "cvs update -j branchname". This means "join the branch to the mainline". Here is some documentation on Branching and Merging.

Be sure to read the section Merging from a branch several times. I missed that part the first time I merged a branch and it caused me grief later on.

We ended up with only one branch, when I completely rewrote our PID framework. I worked off the PID branch while everyone else worked from head.

[Joe Ross]

We used a dedicated laptop running Debian Linux (stable) as the server. I used cvsd to chroot the cvs pserver process. Each team member had a unique login and a trivial password^*. I used viewcvs (now renamed to viewvc) as a web interface to let anyone without cvs knowledge browse the repository. We stored all kinds of stuff in the repository, not just our code. For example, we stored all the rules and updates and other documentation, our team roster, even photos of the robot.

We do not have internet access at our build, but do have an internal wireless lan. When we were at our build location, the cvs laptop is there. When we aren't building, it's at my house accessible over our dsl connection. The laptop ran a dns server such that when it was at our build location, you could use the same address as when you were accessing it over the internet.

The commit philosophy we used was such that you should commit after testing when a test platform was availible, but if a test platform wasn't availible commit once you were happy and the code compiled.

For our programming directory, we stored all the .c, .h, .lkr, .lib, .mcp, all the text readmes, and the .hex file. We wanted to have a complete history of the hex file so we could pull up exactly the program we used for each match, without worrying about library changes or other things like that.

Right now we have a tag for the state it was after ship, and for after each fix-it window. We'll also have a tag for the code as it was in the robot for each match so that the drive team can easily request an old version. Depending on whether significant changes get implemented between matches, we may end up branching.

^{*We'll probably be switching to a more secure form of authentication next year, I just wanted to get something that worked easily out of the box}

[Eldarion]

Originally Posted by Keith Watson

I used cvs (including scripts written on top of cvs) for many, many years. We did not use branches very often. More than 95% of our stuff was done on the mainline. Branching is best used when you need to do isolated development with version control while the mainline goes through several revisions.

If you use TortoiseCVS check the User's Guide, it's simple. If you use a flavor of regular cvs look for "cvs update -j branchname". This means "join the branch to the mainline". Here is some documentation on Branching and Merging.

Thaks for the links. For some reason I was finding it difficult to locate CVS documentation.

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by gnirts

So it seems that others are using Subversion as well. A few questions about version control in general:

Which files in the code directory does everyone put under version control? Just .c and .h? .hex too?

The source files & headers (*.c, *.h), libraries (*.lib), the makefile, any additional scripts, the doxygen configuration, and any documentation sources (*.dox).

Originally Posted by gnirts

What about documentation?

API-type documentation is generated by doxygen and uploaded to a server. Anyone with doxygen can generate their own edition.

Originally Posted by gnirts

And how often does everyone commit? Major revisions? Every compile?

I try to commit when I have a working version, at the end of a meeting, or when we need to sync systems during a meeting.

Originally Posted by gnirts

Lastly, do people using CVS/SVN use the tools inside MPLAB or Tortoise?

I use Subversion inside of Eclipse via Subclipse. Occasionally I have to do more advanced stuff using TortoiseSVN.

Originally Posted by gnirts

Just Curious,
Robinson

That's what we're here for.

(A warning about SVN, it doesn't have tagging/branching in the same way that CVS does. What happens is that it copies the files to a new directory in your repository. So if you placed your sources in the root of the repo, you can't really branch/tag.)

[ericand]

That is what we do for the most part. The merge is made much easier by
using a contextual diff tool that visually shows which files are different, and
helps us merge the files.

Originally Posted by Donut

We use a set of folders with different version names, and a good old USB drive. My job this year (other than doing a few tasks that had to be finished) was pretty much merging code and making sure everything got coded.

We should probably invest in something else though.