[Dott-Devel] CVS Stuff

[Greg T. <gr...@sp...>]

A patch is basically a file that other people can use to update their 
code based on the contents of your patch file. In the patch file is a 
detailed list of things that you changed on your copy of the file from 
the main CVS located on SF. This is detailed up to the line. It 
documents lines that are added, deleted, or modified.

Not all of the contributors to the DoTT project have CVS, and it's not 
neccessary for all of them to have it since we have the ability to 
patch. For those of you who wish to contribute code but don't have an 
account with access to the developer CVS account, start by getting a 
copy of the code.

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/dott co 
dott10

A bunch of files should fly by and depending on your connection speed, 
you'll either get it quick or around 15-20 mins worth (Approx 4-5 MB or 
so). A dott10 dir will be created in your current directory.

If you already have a copy of our code, first make sure your copy is up 
to date by either typing the command above from one level above the 
dott10 directory, or by manually updating file(s) by typing

cvs update <filename>

Make SURE to do this before you even think of changing something. This 
will merge the SF CVS with your file. If you have changed something and 
need the newest copy of the file, you may still cvs update and attempt 
to merge it. This usually works unless your work crosses over work 
submitted after your version of the file was released. Which is why you 
should always keep your source up to date and the patches should be 
submitted as soon as possible to avoid conflicts.

 From there you can cd to the dir, change something, then create a patch 
file of your changes

cvs diff <yourfile> <filetocompare> > <diffname>

Your file is the name of the file you changed. Filetocompare is the name 
of the file on the CVS archive, which should almost always be the same 
as Yourfile. The > signifies that you're dumping the output from the 
command in to a file. If you remove the stuff after filetocompare and 
hit enter, you'll see the diff text. Diffname is the name of the cvs 
diff (Or patch) file to create. This should be yourfile.diff. IE, I 
change mud.h, my diff file is mud.h.diff.

Submitting patches happens through the SF website. When you go to the
Dawn of the Titans projet, there is a heading 'Public Areas' which 
contains a 'Tracker' section, which has a 'Patches' link. If you click 
on 'Patches', you end up in the Patches Tracker, and you can click on 
'Submit New' to submit a new patch.

When submitting patches, try not to submit multiple changes. I know this 
is sometimes unavoidable, but try to split more minor changes in to 
different patches so we can see more of what exactly was changed. IE: 
Don't go edit the code and just do whitespace/format rearranging AND add 
or modify code too. We can't tell what was added if you do that :)

Applying patches to MUD source happens through 'patch'. How you need to 
run patch depends on how the original diff was created, but in general 
you do 'patch -p0 < /path/to/patchfile' in the directory that contains 
the files that will be updated.

If you have no existing source or want to update directly from the CVS 
which is basically the same as applying a patch, type this:

cvs -z3 -d:pserver:ano...@cv...:/cvsroot/dott co 
dott10

This will merge the current CVS with your local code. The dott10 
directory will be created or updated from your current directory. It's 
usually best to be IN your home dir when doing this.

CVS is still a bit foreign to me, so please tell me if there are any 
errors in this post. There probably are, but this will do for now to 
start :)

Grant Blackman
- Project Administrator