[cvsnt] Modules and Shared Libraries - tagging strategy?

Lehman, Curtis CLehman at carrieraccess.com
Thu Nov 11 16:43:30 GMT 2004


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My company is currently trying to resolve basically the same problem. We
have the added problem that the multiple projects that the library needs to
be shared among reside on different physical CVS servers in different
states. That makes the alias checkout method you describe below not viable.
All the projects our library goes into have differnt directory structers,
nameing conventions, and tagging policy's. We are solving the problem by
treating the library as it's on project. It has it's own version and tagging
system. The library will will have releases that are delivered to each
project. Each project that uses the library can then check-in the .a and .h
files into there project however they like. (We also will deliver an api and
other documentation with a release.) All the other projects treat our
library like a third party software. Some of the benifits of this are: 

1. Faster builds becasue the projects that use the library don't have to
recompile the library every time, just link it.
2. The projects can't modify the code, they have to work through the group
that own's and delivers the library. This helps keep the code generic and
reusable. We are planning on useing doxygen to deliver a read only version
of code in case they want to look at how the code works.

Hope this helps,
- Curt 

-----Original Message-----
From: Williams, Tim [mailto:WilliamsTim at PRAIntl.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 11, 2004 9:12 AM
To: cvsnt at cvsnt.org cvsnt downloads at march-hare.com @CVSNT on Twitter CVSNT on Facebook
Cc: Williams, Tim
Subject: [cvsnt] Modules and Shared Libraries - tagging strategy?


Hi folks,

I have a question about how best to use and manage a code library that
is used in multiple projects.
 
Take for example two projects that share a code library. The projects
are PROJ1 and PROJ2, both in the same repository. They share a common
library I'll call PROJ-SHARED that I check out with each project using
ampersand module specification. My modules file would look like:

PROJ-SHARED -d PROJ-SHARED PROJ/PROJ-SHARED/SAS
PROJ1-MAIN -d SAS PROJ/PROJ1/SAS
PROJ2-MAIN -d SAS PROJ/PROJ2/SAS
PROJ1 &PROJ1-MAIN &PROJ-SHARED
PROJ2 &PROJ2-MAIN &PROJ-SHARED

So if I checkout PROJ1 in my sandbox I get:

...\williamstim\PROJ1\SAS\...
....\williamstim\PROJ1\PROJ-SHARED\...

Now let's say I am ready to tag PROJ1 for a Release.  We use a tagging
convention: Release1, Release2, Release3.... for all of our projects.  I
want to tag PROJ1 with the tag "Release1" and I do this by applying the
tag to the \SAS folder my sandbox (*not* to the \PROJ1 folder, because
the files in PROJ-SHARED are used in other projects that may not be
ready for release, or have already gone past Release1.  

If I checkout PROJ1 to a production area using the tag "Release1" I get
all my PROJ1 files, but not any files in the shared library, since I did
not tag it "Release1".  

The only solutions I see at the moment are:
	1.	Change the tagging convention so I tag at the PROJ1
level and tag both the \SAS and \PROJ-SHARED folder in the sandbox,
using a tag that includes the project identifier. For example, Release1
becomes PROJ1_Release1 or similar naming convention. In this way, the
shared library gets tagged appropriately for each project that uses the
shared library.  
This would break naming conventions we already have in place, so I am
hoping for another solution.  Some of our project identifiers and tags
are already long strings, so the resulting tag names become longer and
more prone to user entry error. (E.g :  FOO100XX-FOO01_InterimRelease1
instead of simply: "InterimRelease1")
	2.	Maintain the shared code library as a completely
separate module.  
	This would not allow a strong link to the project moved into
production, since the library may not be tagged with the same tag as the
project (PROJ1). In fact, if we do not change our naming convention, it
would not be tagged at all!? (bad!)

	I would enjoy hearing from anyone who uses shared code libraries
between multiple projects and how they manage them using CVS.

	Thanks in advance,

	Tim  



SAS Systems Administrator
PRA International
Charlottesville VA, USA




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