Re: automatic checkout

[Mark D. Baushke]

Roderick Bloem <address@hidden> writes:

> I want to use cvs for a directory that contains scripts.  I don't want
> everyone to change the scripts in the directory: I won't have
> accountability.  Thus, it is under cvs.  People should check out,
> change, and submit.  I don't want them to write to the directory
> itself, because they will forget to check in.

That sounds like a people managment problem...

> I would like changes to propagate to the script directory immediately.
> Everytime someone commits, an update would be executed in the script
> directory.  Is that possible?

Not directly as the loginfo script is being run while you have all of
your commit locks.

> I have tried a loginfo script, but there is a problem with the locks:
> the cvs update runs when the commit has not released the lock yet.

Correct.

> I have looked on the web and found some references, but nothing very
> satisfactory.  

No surprise there, there is no 'magic bullet' in this case.

> I have seen ACU, but it seems more concerned with managing multiple
> machines (which is not a problem), than with the lock. I have also
> thought about putting a pause into the script that does the update,
> but that does not seem very safe, not do I know how to do it. (My
> shell programming is bad, and I don't know how to spawn a process from
> loginfo.)

Spawning a process from loginfo for this purpose is a bad idea as it
will wait for its children before clearing the lock. Using tricks to
background a grandchild process might work, but may not be reliable
in all cases.

> Is there a good solution for this?  Should I consider a different setup?

I suppose you could have e-mail notification sent to an e-mail address
for which the .procmailrc (or equivalent) will always do a 'cvs update'
on the script directory if it sees any mention of the script directory
in the log message...

        Good luck,
        -- Mark