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Posted to dev@subversion.apache.org by "Eric S. Raymond" <es...@snark.thyrsus.com> on 2004/09/18 13:33:09 UTC
Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
A pattern I'm seeing that is beginning to bother me is that Subversion
is very pleasant to use when everything is working perfectly, but an
impenetrable stone bitch when anything goes the least bit wrong.
The botch in svnadmin recover about which I previously raised hell
was one case in point. Here is another:
esr@snark:~/svn/gpsd$ svn diff -r307:308 http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/
svn: PROPFIND request failed on '/'
svn: PROPFIND of '/': 200 OK (http://svn.berlios.de)
esr@snark:~/svn/gpsd$ ssh svn.berlios.de
Last login: Fri Sep 17 22:42:09 2004 from dsl092-053-140.phl1.dsl.speakeasy.net
BerliOS CVS / SVN Server
Welcome to your BerliOS account
The project CVS repository can be found at:
/cvsroot/<projectname>
The project Subversion (SVN) repository can be found at:
/svnroot/repos/<projectname>
where <projectname> is the unix name of your project.
Have a lot of fun...
esr@sheep:~> cd /svnroot/repos/gpsd
esr@sheep:/svnroot/repos/gpsd> ls
conf dav db format hooks locks README.txt SNAPSHOT
esr@sheep:/svnroot/repos/gpsd>
What is one supposed to do with this? The message is cryptic, there
is nothing in the book, nothing in the FAQ, and no obvious reason
for the command to have failed since there is in fact a repository
at that URL.
I don't just want the symptom fixed for me, I want the error message
fixed so that future users will know how to recover from this error.
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may
be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they
do so with the approval of their consciences.
-- C. S. Lewis
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by Arkadiusz Miskiewicz <ar...@pld-linux.org>.
On Saturday 18 of September 2004 15:33, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> A pattern I'm seeing that is beginning to bother me is that Subversion
> is very pleasant to use when everything is working perfectly, but an
> impenetrable stone bitch when anything goes the least bit wrong.
>
> The botch in svnadmin recover about which I previously raised hell
> was one case in point. Here is another:
>
> esr@snark:~/svn/gpsd$ svn diff -r307:308
> http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/ svn: PROPFIND request
Does it exists? Try using web browser:
http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/
--
Arkadiusz Miśkiewicz PLD/Linux Team
http://www.t17.ds.pwr.wroc.pl/~misiek/ http://ftp.pld-linux.org/
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by kf...@collab.net.
"Eric S. Raymond" <es...@thyrsus.com> writes:
> I'd have shipped a patch, but I wanted somebody who knows the code better
> than me to pass on whether that was a useful error message, first. I'll
> try to get to this later today.
Awesome! And I'll keep my eyes open, then.
-Karl
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by "Eric S. Raymond" <es...@thyrsus.com>.
kfogel@collab.net <kf...@collab.net>:
> Patches make this happen faster, of course :-)... but you knew that.
>
> I've annotated issue #1254 with this scenario. I wish I had time to
> just fix it myself right now, but don't. However, I will commit in
> advance to reviewing any patch you post for it. Thanks for the bug
> report!
I'd have shipped a patch, but I wanted somebody who knows the code better
than me to pass on whether that was a useful error message, first. I'll
try to get to this later today.
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by kf...@collab.net.
"Eric S. Raymond" <es...@thyrsus.com> writes:
> > I'm not sure how to describe that usefully concisely in an error - "The
> > remote server is acting weird" isn't really an improvement.
>
> Perhaps:
>
> "Repository doesn't exist, or remote webserver is not supporting DAV
> requests."
>
> That wouldn't illuminate the PROPFIND/GET confusion but it would at least
> be a clue.
I'll make no conjecture about the ratio of helpful to unhelpful error
messages in Subversion -- each side multiplied by the frequency with
which they actually occur, of course. However, where there are bad
error messages, we try to fix them.
Patches make this happen faster, of course :-)... but you knew that.
I've annotated issue #1254 with this scenario. I wish I had time to
just fix it myself right now, but don't. However, I will commit in
advance to reviewing any patch you post for it. Thanks for the bug
report!
-Karl
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by "Eric S. Raymond" <es...@thyrsus.com>.
Max Bowsher <ma...@ukf.net>:
> In this case, there actually *isn't* a repository at that URL. There should
> be, but there isn't. BerliOS appears to have accidentally deactivated
> mod_dav_svn.
>
> In fact, the remote server appears to be treating PROPFIND as equivalent to
> a GET. That's bizarre.
I've reported this as a bug to berlios.de site management.
> I'm not sure how to describe that usefully concisely in an error - "The
> remote server is acting weird" isn't really an improvement.
Perhaps:
"Repository doesn't exist, or remote webserver is not supporting DAV requests."
That wouldn't illuminate the PROPFIND/GET confusion but it would at least
be a clue.
--
<a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/">Eric S. Raymond</a>
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by Max Bowsher <ma...@ukf.net>.
Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> A pattern I'm seeing that is beginning to bother me is that Subversion
> is very pleasant to use when everything is working perfectly, but an
> impenetrable stone bitch when anything goes the least bit wrong.
>
...
> esr@snark:~/svn/gpsd$ svn diff -r307:308
> http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/ svn: PROPFIND request
> failed
> on '/'
> svn: PROPFIND of '/': 200 OK (http://svn.berlios.de)
...
> What is one supposed to do with this? The message is cryptic, there
> is nothing in the book, nothing in the FAQ, and no obvious reason
> for the command to have failed since there is in fact a repository
> at that URL.
>
> I don't just want the symptom fixed for me, I want the error message
> fixed so that future users will know how to recover from this error.
It's true we have some unilluminating error messages. We do try fix them as
they are brought to our notice, though.
In this case, there actually *isn't* a repository at that URL. There should
be, but there isn't. BerliOS appears to have accidentally deactivated
mod_dav_svn.
In fact, the remote server appears to be treating PROPFIND as equivalent to
a GET. That's bizarre.
I'm not sure how to describe that usefully concisely in an error - "The
remote server is acting weird" isn't really an improvement.
Max.
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by Bryan Simmons <br...@gmail.com>.
A failed WebDAV request is certainly noticable by svn, right? Since
it seemed that the web server worked but the module didn't couldn't
the error be more like "DAV request failed, is mod_dav_svn enabled?"
On Sun, 19 Sep 2004 16:57:29 +0100, Andy Whitcroft <ap...@shadowen.org> wrote:
> On Saturday 18 September 2004 14:33, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> > http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/ svn: PROPFIND request
> > failed on '/'
> > svn: PROPFIND of '/': 200 OK (http://svn.berlios.de)
>
> This is the second of these that I've seen reported recently. The problem is
> that subversion is quite reasonably returning the 'error' that was returned
> from the other end. In this case an obscure success message. It seems that
> there should be a coverall message saying "Comminication failed with remote
> server" or something.
>
> -apw
>
>
>
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>
--
Regards,
Bryan Simmons
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will
be a violent psychopath who knows where you live.
-- Rick Osborne
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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Re: Subversion is brittle in an annoying way
Posted by Andy Whitcroft <ap...@shadowen.org>.
On Saturday 18 September 2004 14:33, Eric S. Raymond wrote:
> http://svn.berlios.de/svnroot/repos/gpsd/trunk/ svn: PROPFIND request
> failed on '/'
> svn: PROPFIND of '/': 200 OK (http://svn.berlios.de)
This is the second of these that I've seen reported recently. The problem is
that subversion is quite reasonably returning the 'error' that was returned
from the other end. In this case an obscure success message. It seems that
there should be a coverall message saying "Comminication failed with remote
server" or something.
-apw
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