Question

I seek advice on how to set up the directory tree of TWiki so as to make it easiest to use CVS.

TWiki's default directory tree, containing the "special" twiki/data and twiki/pub directories, is awkward to CVS.

Alternatively, this may be seen as a suggestion that the default structure be made more CVSable. More generically, that twiki do a better job of separating highly variable stuff (the sort of thing Sun puts in /var) from less changeable stuff.

Note: this is separate from the issue of whether TWiki should use CVS for the topic pages. That would make things easier, but nnot solve the problem

In the background section below I attach parts of a page from my local installation describing some such issues.

Environment

-- AndyGlew - 20 Aug 2003

Background: CVSing Local TWiiki Installation

Since I (AndyGlew) am anal retentive, I version control everything. In particular, I am CVS'ing the local installation of TWiki that I have made at my company.

This has some special considerations, in part because TWiki uses RCS files, and because the twiki/data and twiki/pub directories need to be exposed to the web

in different ways, whereas the rest of the twiki installation does not.

Reconciling TWiki's RCS with Installation CVS

This is slightly wierd, because TWiki version controls its wiki pages using RCS. Checking these files into CVS results in *,v,v files in the CVS repository. (I used -I! to do the original CVS import.) To my surprise, this doesn't seem to be causing too many problems.

Note: TWiki uses RCS for the twiki/data directories (and maybe the twiki/pub attachments).

Of course, the TWiki source itself is version controlled using CVS.

Also, all local installation scripts, etc, are CVS'ed.

Towards TWiki CVS

In my dreams, I would like to move towards having TWiki version control its files using CVS, not RCS. There has been discussion at twiki.org about doing this, but nothing is available yet. Other wikis have been CVS based, but none as fully featured as CVS.

Why? Well, I'd like to use one version control system for the entire project. Also, I hope that important data will get placed under TWiki, and I just plain always version control important data.

Other special considerations for CVSing

(1) cvs is good. I cvs my twiki installation

(2) but, the twiki/data area for twiki pages, and the twiki/pub area where attachments are stored, are "special", in the annoying sense.

a) the twiki/data/Webs use RCS files. I have checked the RCS ,v files into CVS with no apparent ill effects, but it is still a worry

b) both the twiki/data and the twiki/pub areas have special requirements for file permissions, that CVS does not maintain. After CVS'ing them, I typically need to rsh to a machine that I can run sudo on and change the ownerships and groups. Not doing this causes an annoying problem whereby edits are lost the first time the file is editted after a cvs checkout.

c) the twiki/pub area needs to be in an htdoc area so that stuff can be accessed by the apache webserver - gifs, attachments, etc. (As installed by me, twiki/pub is a symlink to /proj/wiki/www to a directory mapped by the Apache webserver.)

d) the twiki/data and twiki/pub areas change frequently, since this is where users post wiiki pages and attachments. I do not need to check in all such changes. However, I do need to check in some changes, such as particular 'system admin" type changes. And I prefer to use my one true version control tool, CVS, to do so.

So, I am in a quandary. I sometimes want to cvs twiki/data and twiki/pub, but not always; and the special considerations make cvs more awkward to use.

I was hoping that I could make recursively traversing into these areas not the default, but I cannot see how to do so. CVS traverses symlinks.

I may, later, set the dataDir variable in TWiki.pm, which may at least allow me to separate the twiki/data and twiki/pub not to be subtrees of the standard twiki installation. Then I can type cvs to the standard twiki isntallation, and expect it to work.

(I'm putting that off pending some refactorings that should minimize the number of places that know the tree structure.)

Overall, however, you must take care with CVS commands. As of 20 Aug 2003, my local tree looks like

   twiki-stuff
       install  - local, conventionally CVS'ed
       wrappers - local, conventionally CVS'ed
       twiki    - standard
         bin    - conventionally CVS'ed
         lib    - conventionally CVS'ed
         data   - "special", awkward to CVS
         pub    - some "special", awkward to CVS, some ordinary
                - symlinked elsewhere

Basically, you should use regular CVS commands, especially not cvs ci, in any parent of the special directories twiki/data and twiki/pub, because it might cause permissions problems.

AndyGlew

Answer

I am not an expert. I just wonder, why you use another CVS for /data and /pub - it's already in RCS, right? DataAndCodeSeparation talks about different approach - have no idea if it is something relevant to what you need.

-- PeterMasiar - 21 Aug 2003