Adding comments to SVN revisions

Question

I'm using Subversion 1.6 with TortoiseSVN and WebSVN. I'm looking for a simple tool, that would enable me to add custom comments to SVN revisions. So I would be able to see the stream of incoming revisions and mark which of them I already reviewed. An ability to share the comments with other programmers would also be a welcome addition, but it's not necessary. Could you recommend any tools for this?

Answer 1

I would probably use SVN tags for this. A simple prefix naming convention would probably do the job for you.

Answer 2

If the Tags solution doesn't work, you could also use properties. Either tags or properties could be scripted to check for the files in the repo that are missing those marks, let you review them, and add the updates. Here's another thread that may help you automate this.

Answer 3

Quoting from the comment at the answer of Lloyd over here.

I will add that the value of tortoise svn is that it prompts you to add a comment on the revision you are committing. Which would generally be good practice. And has has proved super handy for me a number of times.

Answer 4

In Subversion, you can attach arbitrary properties to revisions, using the svn propset --revprop command. So, you could have a revision property called viewed which you set to true on all revisions which you've viewed.

There are a couple of caveats you should be aware of before doing this, though.

First of all, changing revision properties is a dangerous action, since it can affect the history of the repository, and also has no history of its own (you cannot see when it was done, or by whom). Therefore, it is not allowed by default, and needs to be specially enabled in the Subversion repository hooks directory.

Secondly, the revision properties are shared among all users of the repository - there is no way to set them just for your working copy. This seems to be what you want, so this may be a good thing for you.

Answer 5

We use Atlassian Crucible at work, and it's fantastic.

Depending on your definition of 'simple', this may not be what you're looking for. But it's incredibly easy to use. You can browse source code in FishEye, and click a single link to create a code review for that revision.

But it's also very flexible, so you could find yourself spending a lot of time tweaking it to work just the way you want it to.

Answer 6

Sounds to me like you are looking for a code review system.

Take a look at this StackOverflow question and at this StackOverflow answer to find links to several review systems.

Answer 7

If you use TortoiseSVN, you can go in and edit the comments of any checkin.

Our team has recently implemented code review using SmartBear's Code Collaborator. At the time of the checkin, the submission is audited for certain elements (change/bug ID in the comments, absence of debugging statements, absence of certain prohibited units, etc.. ). Once that passes, the diff is generated by SVNLook, and sent to the review tool, where a review is automatically created with the committing userid as the author, the change request/bug ID entered, and the description carried over from the commit.

Over in the review tool, we can now make REALLY USEFUL commentary on the changes being made, right on the code lines in question.

We're currently doing this after the changes have been committed, but it's also possible to do in the pre-commit hook, so that nothing gets committed to project branches until the review has been completed. Our team is not ready for that yet....

Anyway, I know this is not what you asked, but it may be a better direction for you.

Answer 8

It has less to do with svn and more to do with code review here!

I recommend Code Collaborator