[AccessD] Access source control

Darren - Active Billing darren at activebilling.com.au
Wed Jul 14 01:14:47 CDT 2010


Hi John

Just on Subversion - and just as an FYI - There is a nice GUI (Right Click
menus mostly) interface for SVN called Tortoise (You can get it from Tigris)
Our nerds here at the office tell me that SVN has very powerful command line
capabilities too - they actually use that more than the GUI (But they are
nerds)
So if you nut out the common SVN actions that call say...A Checkout, Update,
Commit, Compare etc, you should have something useful.
Darren

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby
Sent: Wednesday, 14 July 2010 2:45 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Access source control

I managed to use Maxe's EatBloat to export a pretty complex FE to disk.  I
then set up a local SVN repository and checked in the files, through Windows
Explorer.  I then checked them back out.  So all files have a green check
mark.

I am not really sure what to do next.  I think I could just export another
version of the database into this source controlled directory tree and then
do a put (check in).  That might store the diffs between the two versions.
Or not.

Logically I think I would need to delete all of the existing files before
doing so because that would cause any objects deleted between versions to
show up as deletions in version control.

I know someone said that they use subversion from the command line /
explorer.  Feel free to speak up on this.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


jwcolby wrote:
>  > I guess the success will depend on what you hope to gain.
> 
> I am hoping to gain differentials immediately.
> 
>  >Without a check in/out from within Access, any changes to a database 
> will have to be manually exported and then imported to subversion, right?
> 
> Yes, unless Subversion can be automated from within Access, which I would
guess would be possible.
> 
>  >I'm not familiar with the product, so how do you keep versions of 
> the objects rather than overwriting, or does it matter?
> 
> I am not sure how, this is just an idea that popped into my head.
> 
> I am currently faced with a set of FEs that I need to see the 
> differentials of.  That is what Subversion is all about after all.  So 
> the big picture is to check in two versions of the FE and then see what
Subversion shows me for differentials.
> 
> How???  No clue, but it is a matter of pride that having no clue has 
> never stopped me before.  ;)
> 
> What I know is that we have this thing called EatBloat which neatly 
> exports everything in a database to files.  Well... it has some issues 
> (number of items in a list control IIRC) but those can be worked out.
> 
> What has to be done is figure out how to have subversion check those 
> files in.  Even better would be to have subversion executed from 
> inside of Access to check those files in, though that is not an absolute
requirement.
> 
> Once EatBloat is run on two different versions, and each is checked in 
> to subversion , differentials should be available.
> 
> I use subversion from inside of Visual Studio, but I have never done 
> so from the command line or from a right click menu for explorer.  But 
> apparently others in this forum have done so.  They need to speak up.
> 
> I have a manual for subversion that I need to start reading.
> 
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> 
> 
> Charlotte Foust wrote:
>> I guess the success will depend on what you hope to gain.  Without a 
>> checkin/out from within Access, any changes to a database will have 
>> to be manually exported and then imported to subversion, right?  I'm 
>> not familiar with the product, so how do you keep versions of the 
>> objects rather than overwriting, or does it matter?
>>
>> Charlotte
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 4:21 PM, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
wrote:
>>> I am trying a workaround.  Max has written code that exports all the 
>>> objects in an access database to text files.  It seems a short step to
using that to get them into subversion.
>>>
>>> John W. Colby
>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>>>
>>>
>>> Charlotte Foust wrote:
>>>> How would you move items in an out of Access?  Source Safe uses an 
>>>> Access add-in to handle source control at the object level.  Is 
>>>> there something similar for subversion, or are you trying a workaround?
>>>>
>>>> Charlotte
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jul 13, 2010 at 1:35 PM, jwcolby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com>
wrote:
>>>>> I am wondering whether we could put together subversion and Access to
do source control.
>>>>>
>>>>> Max's eatbloat will export and import most things Access into a 
>>>>> directory structure.  Subversion could be used to move that stuff 
>>>>> into version control.  Once in subversion, we might be able to do
differencing etc.
>>>>>
>>>>> Whaddayathink?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> --
>>>>> John W. Colby
>>>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>>>>> --
>>>>> AccessD mailing list
>>>>> AccessD at databaseadvisors.com
>>>>> http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd
>>>>> Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com
>>>>>
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>>> AccessD mailing list
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>>>
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