Using Subversion Hooks to send out build emails
By Pete Freitag
The subversion version control system has a wonderfully handy feature called hooks. Hooks are essentially scripts that are triggered by a version control event (such as a commits, or revision property changes).
Subversion Hooks are located in your repository directory (so if you have multiple repositories you have to setup hooks for each one) in a directory called hooks
, perhaps something like this: /home/svn/projectName/hooks
. There are template files (.tmpl) in the directory for each event (these files are just examples). The events are:
- start-commit - run before commit transaction begins, can be used to do special permission checking
- pre-commit - run at the end of the transaction, but before commit. Often used to validate things such as a non zero length log message.
- post-commit - runs after the transaction has been committed. Can be used for sending emails, or backing up repository.
- pre-revprop-change - runs before a revision property change. Can be used to check permissions.
- post-revprop-change - runs after a revision property change. Can be used to email or backup these changes.
In your hooks directory you will find a .tmpl file with each of the event names, if you want to enable one of the hooks, copy the template file (without the .tmpl extension) and make it executable.
Note: On windows you need to rename the .tmpl file with an extension that is executable by windows such as an exe or bat file.
If you want to send out a build email on post-commit
copy the post-commit.tmpl
file to post-commit
and make it executable. Edit the file, and add your email addresses.
Subversion comes with a few other pre-built hook scripts, there is a hot-backup.py
script that can be used to make hot backups of your repository after commits.
You can find more info about this in the Version control with Subversion book (ISBN 0596004486) which can also be found here
As with any server, you should also make sure your subversion server is patched for security vulnerabilities. A good way to keep updated on subversion vulnerabilities is with stack.watch. It will help you by sending you an email when new vulnerabilities are published.
Using Subversion Hooks to send out build emails was first published on February 23, 2005.
If you like reading about subversion, version control, or hooks then you might also like:
- Bug Report hooks for FindBugs and Subversion
- Top 10 Things I like about subversion
- Subversion Better than CVS?
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Comments
We actually use subversion hooks to do just that, we send the results of the ant build script and also the svn commit. Basically what you need to do is write the results of your build to a file, and include the contents of the file in the email
AFAIK, the various hook scripts execute in a synchronous fashion, keeping the svn client blocked until everything is complete.
In other words, I'm assuming your svn client is blocked until your build is complete (correct me if I'm wrong).
Since commit transactions now become potentially very long (a build of a project typically takes from 10 secs to 30 minutes) - how does this impact your work?
Does svn allow concurrent commits? (I.e. can Sue commit while Fred's commit is in process?) If concurrent commits are not possible, wouldn't your setup potentially cause developers to have to queue up in order to commit their changes?
Can any one point me to what is needed to enable the revprop change hook when running the SVN server on Windows?
But your blog title mentions "build emails". How can you use svn hooks to email results of a build?
Did I miss something?