SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com>]

I just noticed that SmartSVN has been acquired by Wandisco [1].

IMHO, one of the nice features of SmartSVN's professional (commercial,
non-free) version is the ability to repair broken working copies. It's
listed as the feature "Guided fixing of rare working copy problems" on
the "Compare Editions" page [2]. It does things like correcting
checksums, refcounts, recovering missing pristines, ... (by contacting
the repository of course).

Are there any intentions of porting that feature to core SVN? Now that
the Wandisconians are involved with that codebase ...
Just asking ... :-).

Whether or not Wandisco will "donate" that feature to the core
library, it's my personal opinion that svn will eventually have to
grow such a feature. It's just untenable that a multi-GB working copy
can get completely broken by one missing pristine file (and I (and my
users) really hate the phrase "it's just a working copy, just get
another checkout").

[1] http://www.smartsvn.com
[2] http://www.smartsvn.com/comparison
-- 
Johan

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Daniel Shahaf <da...@elego.de>]

Johan Corveleyn wrote on Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 14:52:59 +0200:
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Daniel Shahaf <da...@elego.de> wrote:
> > Johan Corveleyn wrote on Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:46:21 +0200:
> >> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Mat Booth <ma...@wandisco.com> wrote:
> >> > On 21 September 2012 10:20, Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >> ... a source of inspiration ...
> >> >
> >> > I see what you did there :-)
> >>
> >> Heh. To be clear: I haven't seen the code :-). But I've used the trial
> >> version of SmartSVN a couple of times to repair working copies at our
> >> company, so I can see the kinds of repairs that it does (in a much
> >> safer way than what I was doing myself (fiddling around with sqlite
> >> and trying various workaround with 'svn update -r0' and 'svn update
> >> --set-depth=exclude')).
> >
> > "In a much safer way"?  How did it implement its repairs?
> 
> I don't know how they implemented them, but at least they programmed
> the repair routines and (presumably) tested them. Which is already way
> better than me typing and potentially fat-fingering some 'sqlite
> .svn/wc.db "update nodes set ... where ..."' statements :-).

I wonder if SQLite databases have a snapshot capability?  ("moment in
time" snapshots that are restoreable to --- like 'zfs snapshot' / 'zfs
rollback')

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Daniel Shahaf <da...@elego.de> wrote:
> Johan Corveleyn wrote on Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:46:21 +0200:
>> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Mat Booth <ma...@wandisco.com> wrote:
>> > On 21 September 2012 10:20, Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> ... a source of inspiration ...
>> >
>> > I see what you did there :-)
>>
>> Heh. To be clear: I haven't seen the code :-). But I've used the trial
>> version of SmartSVN a couple of times to repair working copies at our
>> company, so I can see the kinds of repairs that it does (in a much
>> safer way than what I was doing myself (fiddling around with sqlite
>> and trying various workaround with 'svn update -r0' and 'svn update
>> --set-depth=exclude')).
>
> "In a much safer way"?  How did it implement its repairs?

I don't know how they implemented them, but at least they programmed
the repair routines and (presumably) tested them. Which is already way
better than me typing and potentially fat-fingering some 'sqlite
.svn/wc.db "update nodes set ... where ..."' statements :-).

-- 
Johan

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Daniel Shahaf <da...@elego.de>]

Johan Corveleyn wrote on Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:46:21 +0200:
> On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Mat Booth <ma...@wandisco.com> wrote:
> > On 21 September 2012 10:20, Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> ... a source of inspiration ...
> >
> > I see what you did there :-)
> 
> Heh. To be clear: I haven't seen the code :-). But I've used the trial
> version of SmartSVN a couple of times to repair working copies at our
> company, so I can see the kinds of repairs that it does (in a much
> safer way than what I was doing myself (fiddling around with sqlite
> and trying various workaround with 'svn update -r0' and 'svn update
> --set-depth=exclude')).

"In a much safer way"?  How did it implement its repairs?

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com>]

On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 11:28 AM, Mat Booth <ma...@wandisco.com> wrote:
> On 21 September 2012 10:20, Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> ... a source of inspiration ...
>
> I see what you did there :-)

Heh. To be clear: I haven't seen the code :-). But I've used the trial
version of SmartSVN a couple of times to repair working copies at our
company, so I can see the kinds of repairs that it does (in a much
safer way than what I was doing myself (fiddling around with sqlite
and trying various workaround with 'svn update -r0' and 'svn update
--set-depth=exclude')).

Also, I have been suggesting such repair functionality on this list
for already a while now, before I knew that SmartSVN had such a
feature. But unfortunately I don't have the time to develop such
features myself :-(, so it has been nothing more than talking and
looking for quick wins here and there ...

-- 
Johan

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Mat Booth <ma...@wandisco.com>]

On 21 September 2012 10:20, Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ... a source of inspiration ...

I see what you did there :-)


-- 
Mat Booth
Software Engineer
WANdisco, Inc.
http://www.wandisco.com

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Johan Corveleyn <jc...@gmail.com>]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 4:42 PM, Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 04:27:28PM +0200, Branko Čibej wrote:
>> On 20.09.2012 16:14, Johan Corveleyn wrote:
>> > I just noticed that SmartSVN has been acquired by Wandisco [1].
>> >
>> > IMHO, one of the nice features of SmartSVN's professional (commercial,
>> > non-free) version is the ability to repair broken working copies. It's
>> > listed as the feature "Guided fixing of rare working copy problems" on
>> > the "Compare Editions" page [2]. It does things like correcting
>> > checksums, refcounts, recovering missing pristines, ... (by contacting
>> > the repository of course).
>> >
>> > Are there any intentions of porting that feature to core SVN? Now that
>> > the Wandisconians are involved with that codebase ...
>> > Just asking ... :-).
>>
>> The WANdisconians do not, in fact, see the SmartSVN codebase. At least I
>> sure hope we don't have access to it; all sorts of problems could arise
>> if proprietary, closed-source stuff started showing up in the public
>> repo, even by accident.
>
> AFAIK SmartSVN is written in Java. The feature Johan wants (which I agree
> would be very useful) would need to be rewritten in C anyway to be included
> in the core.

Ah, indeed. So for the core project, the code in SmartSVN isn't all
that useful (unless as a source of inspiration :-)).

>> That's unless WANdisco wants to open-source the whole thing. :) Which I
>> have no opinion of, nor insight into.
>
> That's an interesting question indeed.
>
> WANdisco has submitted projects to the Apache Incubator in the past.
> Being a Subversion client written in Java, this one seems like it
> would be a good fit :) It would need to switch from SVNKit to JavaHL
> for legal reasons, but that should be easy. Probably more of a business
> model question, rather than a technical one.

Another option, which might be interesting to Wandisco from a
commercial / marketing standpoint: factor out the "repair" code into a
separate application ("SVNCleaner", "SVN Repair Kit", ...) and release
that as a free download, with an easy to use, low-bar UI (graphical
and/or commandline) focused on quickly repairing working copies. It
can be open source or closed source.

It might be a great way to spread your brand, get a foot in the door,
... until other vendors start implementing similar functionality or
until it ends up in the core :-).

Just a thought ...

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Wandisco or with SmartSVN in any
way. Just thinking out loud, and hoping that someday a good option for
working copy reparation will be available for users ...
-- 
Johan

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Stefan Sperling <st...@elego.de>]

On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 at 04:27:28PM +0200, Branko Čibej wrote:
> On 20.09.2012 16:14, Johan Corveleyn wrote:
> > I just noticed that SmartSVN has been acquired by Wandisco [1].
> >
> > IMHO, one of the nice features of SmartSVN's professional (commercial,
> > non-free) version is the ability to repair broken working copies. It's
> > listed as the feature "Guided fixing of rare working copy problems" on
> > the "Compare Editions" page [2]. It does things like correcting
> > checksums, refcounts, recovering missing pristines, ... (by contacting
> > the repository of course).
> >
> > Are there any intentions of porting that feature to core SVN? Now that
> > the Wandisconians are involved with that codebase ...
> > Just asking ... :-).
> 
> The WANdisconians do not, in fact, see the SmartSVN codebase. At least I
> sure hope we don't have access to it; all sorts of problems could arise
> if proprietary, closed-source stuff started showing up in the public
> repo, even by accident.

AFAIK SmartSVN is written in Java. The feature Johan wants (which I agree
would be very useful) would need to be rewritten in C anyway to be included
in the core.

> That's unless WANdisco wants to open-source the whole thing. :) Which I
> have no opinion of, nor insight into.

That's an interesting question indeed.

WANdisco has submitted projects to the Apache Incubator in the past.
Being a Subversion client written in Java, this one seems like it
would be a good fit :) It would need to switch from SVNKit to JavaHL
for legal reasons, but that should be easy. Probably more of a business
model question, rather than a technical one.

Re: SmartSVN (by Wandisco) - repair working copy feature

[Branko Čibej <br...@wandisco.com>]

On 20.09.2012 16:14, Johan Corveleyn wrote:
> I just noticed that SmartSVN has been acquired by Wandisco [1].
>
> IMHO, one of the nice features of SmartSVN's professional (commercial,
> non-free) version is the ability to repair broken working copies. It's
> listed as the feature "Guided fixing of rare working copy problems" on
> the "Compare Editions" page [2]. It does things like correcting
> checksums, refcounts, recovering missing pristines, ... (by contacting
> the repository of course).
>
> Are there any intentions of porting that feature to core SVN? Now that
> the Wandisconians are involved with that codebase ...
> Just asking ... :-).

The WANdisconians do not, in fact, see the SmartSVN codebase. At least I
sure hope we don't have access to it; all sorts of problems could arise
if proprietary, closed-source stuff started showing up in the public
repo, even by accident.

That's unless WANdisco wants to open-source the whole thing. :) Which I
have no opinion of, nor insight into.

-- Brane

-- 
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