Aegis Files

Read Me(Aegis)					   Read	Me(Aegis)

NAME
	aegis -	project	change supervisor
	Copyright (C) 1991, 1992, 1993,	1994, 1995, 1996, 1997,
	1998, 1999, 2000, 2001,	2002 Peter Miller; All rights
	reserved.

	Aegis is distributed under the terms of	the GNU	General
	Public License.	 See the LICENSE section, below, for more
	details.

	aegis (ee.j.iz)	n., a protection, a defense.

DESCRIPTION
	Aegis is a CASE	tool with a difference.	 In the	spirit of
	the UNIX Operating System, Aegis is a small component
	designed to work with other programs.

	Many CASE systems attempt to provide everything, from
	bubble charts to source	control	to compilers.  Users are
	trapped	with the components supplied by	the CASE system,
	and if you don't like one of the components (it	may be
	too limited, for instance), then that is just tough.

	In contrast, UNIX provides many	components of a	CASE
	system - compilers, editors, dependency	maintenance tools
	(such as make),	source control tools (such as RCS).  You
	may substitute the tool	of your	choice if you don't like
	the ones supplied with the system - gcc, jove, cake, to
	name just a few.  Aegis	adds to	this list with software
	configuration management, and true to UNIX philosophy,
	Aegis does not dictate the choice of any of the	other
	tools (although	it may stretch them to their limits).

	Enough hype, what is it	that Aegis does?  Just what is
	software configuration management?  This question is
	sufficiently broad as to require a book	in answer.  In
	essence, Aegis is a project change supervisor.	It
	provides a framework within which a team of developers
	may work on many changes to a program independently, and
	Aegis coordinates integrating these changes back into the
	master source of the program, with as little disruption
	as possible.  Resolution of contention for source files,
	a major	headache for any project with more than	one
	developer, is one of Aegis' major functions.

	It should be noted that	Aegis is a developer's tool, in
	the same sense as make or RCS are developer's tools.  It
	is not a manager's tool	- it does not provide progress
	tracking or manage work	allocation.

BENEFITS
	So why should you use Aegis?

	Aegis uses a particular	model of the development of
	software projects.  This model has a master source (or
	baseline) of a project,	and a team of developers creating
	changes	to be made to this baseline.  When a change is
	complete, it is	integrated with	the baseline, to become
	the new	baseline.  Each	change must be atomic and self-
	contained, no change is	allowed	to cause the baseline to
	cease to work.	"Working" is defined as	passing	it's own
	tests.	The tests are considered part of the baseline.
	Aegis provides support for the developer so that an
	entire copy of the baseline need not be	taken to change	a
	few files, only	those files which are to be changed need
	to be copied.

	In order to ensure that	changes	are unable to cause the
	baseline to cease to work, Aegis mandates that changes be
	accompanied by at least	one test, and that all such tests
	be known to complete successfully.  These steadily
	accumulated tests form an ever increasing regression test
	suite for all later changes.  There is also a mandatory
	review stage for each change to	the baseline.  While
	these requirements may be relaxed per-change or	even per-
	project, doing so potentially compromises the "working"
	definition of the baseline.

	The win	in using Aegis is that there are O(n)
	interactions between developers	and the	baseline.
	Contrast this with a master source which is being edited
	directly by the	developers - there are O(n!)
	interactions between developers	- this makes adding "just
	one more" developer a potential	disaster.

	Another	win is that the	project	baseline always	works.
	Always having a	working	baseline means that a version is
	always available for demonstrations, or	those "pre-
	release	snapshots" we are always forced	to provide.

	The above advantages are all very well - for management
	types.	Why should Joe Average Programmer use Aegis?
	Recall that RCS	provides file locking, but only	for one
	file at	a time.	 Aegis provides	the file locking,
	atomically, for	the set	of files in the	change.	 Recall
	also that RCS locks the	file the instant you start
	editing	it.  This makes	popular	files a	project
	bottleneck.  Aegis allows concurrent editing, and a
	resolution mechanism just before the change must be
	integrated, meaning fewer delays for J.A.Programmer.

	Aegis also has strong support for geographically
	distributed development.  It supports both push	and pull
	models,	and many distribution topologies.  Aegis' normal
	development process is used to validate	received change
	sets before committing them.

ARCHIVE	SITE
	The latest version of Aegis is available by HTTP from:
		URL:	http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/
		File:	aegis.html	   # the Aegis page
		File:	aegis.4.7.README   # Description, from tar file
		File:	aegis.4.7.lsm	   # Description, in LSM format
		File:	aegis.4.7.ae	   # the complete source, aedist format
		File:	aegis.4.7.spec	   # RedHat package specification
		File:	aegis.4.7.tar.gz   # the complete source

	This directory also contains a few other pieces	of
	software written by me.	 Some are referred to in the
	Aegis documentation.  Please have a look if you	are
	interested.

   Mirrors
	See http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/ for a	list of
	mirror sites.

	Aegis is also carried by metalab.unc.edu in its	Linux
	archives.  You will be able to find Aegis on any of its
	mirrors.
		URL:	ftp://metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/devel/vc/
		File:	aegis.4.7.README   # Description, from tar file
		File:	aegis.4.7.lsm	   # Description, in LSM format
		File:	aegis.4.7.spec	   # RedHat package specification
		File:	aegis.4.7.ae	   # the complete source, aedist format
		File:	aegis.4.7.tar.gz   # the complete source
	This site is extensively mirrored around the world, so
	look for a copy	near you (you will get much better
	response).

MAILING	LIST
	A mailing list has been	created	so that	users of Aegis
	may exchange ideas about how to	use Aegis.  Discussion
	may include, but is not	limited	to: bugs, enhancements,
	and applications.  The list is not moderated.

	The address of the mailing list	is
		aegis-users@auug.org.au
	Please DO NOT attempt to subscribe by sending email to
	this address.  It is for content only.

   How To Subscribe
	To subscribe to	this mailing list, visit the Aegis-users
	mailing	list page (http://www.auug.org.au/mailman/-
	listinfo/aegis-users) and go through the subscribe
	dialogue.

   Archive
	The mailing list is archived at	eGroups.  The URL is
	http://www.egroups.com/list/aegis-users/info.html

   No Files By EMail
	The software which handles this	mailing	list CANNOT send
	you a copy of Aegis.  Please use FTP or	ftp-by-email,
	instead.

BUILDING
	Instructions on	how to build and test Aegis are	to be
	found in the BUILDING file included in this distribution.

SOME HISTORY
	The idea for Aegis did not come	full-blown into	my head
	in the shower, as some of my programs do, but rather from
	working	in a software shop which used a	simplistic form
	of something similar.  That system was held together by
	chewing-gum and	string,	it was written in a disgusting
	variant	of Basic, and by golly the damn	thing worked
	(mostly).  Aegis is nothing like it, owes none of its
	code to	that system, and is far	more versatile.	 It turns
	out that the system used is nothing new, and is	described
	in many	SCM textbooks; it is the result	of systematically
	resolving development issues for large-ish teams.

	Since that company decided to close down our section (the
	company	was under attack by a hostile takeover bid) we
	all moved on simultaneously (all 60 of us), sometimes
	working	together, and sometimes	not, but always	keeping
	in touch.  With	suggestions and	conversations with some
	of them	early in 1990, the manual entries for Aegis took
	shape, and formed most of the design document for Aegis.

	Since getting the first	glimmerings of a functional Aegis
	late in	1990 it	is increasingly	obvious	that I never want
	to be without it ever again.  All of my	sources	that I
	modify are instantly placed under Aegis, as is anything	I
	distribute.  All code I	write for myself, and all new
	code I write for my employer, goes under Aegis.	 Why?
	Because	it has fewer bugs!

	Example: one of	the sources I carry with me from job to
	job is "cook", my dependency maintenance tool.	Cook had
	existed	for 3 years before Aegis appeared on the scene,
	and I used it daily.  When I placed cook under Aegis, I
	found 6	bugs!  Since then I have found a few more.  Not
	only are there now fewer bugs, but they	never come back,
	because	the regression test suite always grows.

   Branching
	In 1997	the full branching support was released	(it took
	nearly 18 months to retro-fit.	The underlying data
	structures for projects	and change sets	need to	be
	merged.	 While I noticed back in 1990 that they	were very
	similar, it wasn't until branch	support	design was well
	underways that they should have	been the same  data
	structure from the beginning.

   Geographically Distributed Development
	In 1999	a conversation on the aegis-users mailing list
	resulted in the	creation of aedist, a program which
	packages and unpackages	Aegis changes so they can be sent
	by e-mail, or WWW or whatever.	With 20:20 hindsight,
	this could have	been done way back in 1991, because the
	basic idea builds on Aegis change process model.

Windows	NT
	Aegis depends on the underlying	security provided by the
	operating system (rather than re-invent	yet another
	security mechanism).  However, in order	to do this, Aegis
	uses the POSIX seteuid system call, which has no direct
	equivalent on Windows NT.  This	makes porting difficult.
	Single-user ports are possible (e.g. using Cygwin), but
	are not	usually	what folks want.

	Compounding this is the	fact that many sites want to
	develop	their software for both	Unix and Windows NT
	simultaneously.	 This means that the security of the
	repository needs to be guaranteed to be	handled	in the
	same way by both operating systems, otherwise one can act
	as a ``back door'' into	the repository.	 Many sites do
	not have the same users	and permissions	(sourced from the
	same network register of users)	on both	Unix and Windows
	NT, making the mapping almost impossible even if the
	security models	did actually correspond.

	Most sites using Aegis and Windows NT together do so by
	running	Aegis on the Unix systems, but building	and
	testing	on the NT systems.  The	work areas and repository
	are accessed via Samba or NFS.

LICENSE
	Aegis is free software;	you can	redistribute it	and/or
	modify it under	the terms of the GNU General Public
	License	as published by	the Free Software Foundation;
	either version 2 of the	License, or (at	your option) any
	later version.

	Aegis is distributed in	the hope that it will be useful,
	but WITHOUT ANY	WARRANTY; without even the implied
	warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
	PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more
	details.

	You should have	received a copy	of the GNU General Public
	License	along with this	program; if not, write to the
	Free Software Foundation, Inc.,	59 Temple Place, Suite
	330, Boston, MA	02111, USA.

	It should be in	the LICENSE file included in this
	distribution.

AUTHOR
	Peter Miller   E-Mail:	 millerp@canb.auug.org.au
	/\/\*		  WWW:	 http://www.canb.auug.org.au/~millerp/

RELEASE	NOTES
	For excruciating detail, and also acknowledgments of
	those who generously sent me feedback, please see the
	etc/CHANGES.*  files included in this distribution.

	In general, all	the machines on	your network need to be
	running	the same release of Aegis.  While the database
	format is backwards compatible,	it is rarely forwards
	compatible in the face of new capabilities.

	A number of features have been added to	Aegis with this
	release.  A few	of them	are detailed here:

   Version 4.7
	* The aefind(1)	command	now has	-resolve as the	default.
	To get the previous behaviour, use the -NoResolve option.

	* In the aeca -e and aepa -e commands, it is now possible
	to quote strings with at-signs (@) instead of double
	quotes.	 This type of string allows newlines within the
	string.	 See aegis(5) for more information.

	* For the benefit of Aegis developers, there is	now HTML
	documentation genaretd by Doxygen (if you have Doxygen
	installed).  When developing an	Aegis change, in your
	development directory, point your browser at
	doxygen-html/index.html.  The common/str.h file	is an
	example	of the style desired, should you wish to
	contribute to the effort to get	all of the header files
	suitably annotated.  Also, the removal of the K&R C
	support	has started, see the files in common/*.[ch] for
	examples.  Also	<varargs.h> is not longer used anywhere.

	* The aedist(1)	command	has two	new options, -patch and
	-nopatch, which	may be used to control how and when
	aedist uses patches.  See aepatch(1) for more
	information.

	* A bug	has been fixed inthe strncasecmp function.  This
	only affected you if your system did not have a	native
	version	of this	function.

	* The aeca(1) command now accepts a -fix-architecture
	option.	 This option may be used to correct the
	architecture list of a change automatically.

	* The aedist -receive command now runs the aeca	-fixarch
	command	when a change set arrives which	modified the
	project	config file.  This should fix many of the
	"architecture not in project config file" problems when
	seeding	new projects.

	* Some deficiencies on the ``How to Become a Developer''
	instructions have been addressed.  The native Aegis build
	(but not the Makefile.in) now builds the "tags"	and
	"TAGS" files so	that it	easier to navigate the sources.

	* There	is a new aetar(1) command.  It may be used to
	send and receive tarballs as Aegis change sets.	 See
	aetar(1) for more information.

	* Missing documentation	on the aepconf(5) man page about
	the fine grained file change notification commands has
	been added.

	* Some changes have been made to the Aegis web interface,
	with more back links.  Also uses html2diff(1) if
	available.

	* It is	now possible for reviewers to use the aet(1)
	command	to run tests against the changes they are
	reviewing.

	* The command completion for the aet(1)	command	now works
	better;	it now completes project test names as well as
	change test names.

	* The aepatch(1) and aedist(1) commands	now cope with a
	wider range of input vagueries,	including some weird
	things done by MTAs and	more content transfer encoding
	synonyms.

   Version 4.6
	* The aeipass(1) command now sleeps, rather than issue
	the rather alarming ``warning: file modification times
	extend into the	future'' message.  There is a new project
	config file field, build_time_adjust, which controls this
	behaviour, but it is strongly recommended that you leave
	it on the default setting.

	* There	is a new ${base_relative} substitiontion, almost
	the inverse of ${source}.  See aesub(5)	for more
	information.

	* A bug	has been fixed with the	aeca and aepa -edit
	option.	 It was	caused by the change in	the previous
	release	which added editor user	preferences.

	* A few	build problems have been fixed.

	* A bugs has been fixed	in the tkaepa script.  It would
	sometimes fail the "OK"	button.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the "user changes" list.  It
	was not	explicitly passing the project name when it
	accessed the list of user owned	changes.

   Version 4.5
	* It is	now possible to	set pager and editor preferences
	in your

	* A bug	in aepatch -receive has	been fixed, where it
	would sometimes	misapply a patch. The search used to
	determine the patch position (when it needs to be offset)
	has been improved.

	* The aedist(1)	and aepatch(1) commands	now accept -delta
	and -delta-date	options.

	* The integrate_q.sh shell script has been replaced by
	the aeintegratq(1) Perl	script.	 It can	now lots more
	useful things.	See aeintegratq(1) for more information.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the date parsing code	(used by
	the -delta-date	option).  There	was the	potential to mis-
	calculate dates	after February 2000.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aepatch -receive, where it
	sometimes complain of "no uudecode data	in file", for
	files which did	not require uudecoding.

	* There	are more change-specific substitutions available.
	See ${change ...}  within aesub(5) for more information.

	* The aepatch(1) command now understands ordinary diff
	listings, in addition to the context and unified
	differences it already understood.

	* There	is a new aeannotate(1) command,	used to	produce
	annotated source file listings.	 See aeannotate(1) for
	more information.

   Version 4.4
	* It is	now possible to	specify	system wide user
	preferences.  See aeuconf(5) for more information.

	* The aepatch(1) command now understands the quoted-
	printable content transfer encoding.

	* The aepatch(1) is more robust	when receiving patches
	that want to use a change number that has already been
	used.

	* The Dutch error message translations have been updated.

	* There	was a problem with the way the install directory
	for aegis.cgi was being	determined.  The aegis.cgi script
	is now installed into $bindir by default.  There is a
	aegis.cgi.i helper script to find your web server's cgi-
	bin directory and copy aegis.cgi there,	but this is not
	done automatically.  See aegis.cgi(1) for more
	information.

	* Another change has been made to cope with still more
	Bison changes.

	* A French error message translation has been
	contributed.

	* A problem with aedist	-receive has been fixed, where
	the new	configuration_directory	could interact with the
	order of file creation.

	* A big	has been fixed in the uuencode output, which
	could occasionally miss	the "begin" line.

	* A bug	has been fiexed	in the context diff parsing,
	where it would get the last hunk wrong if it was a hunk
	which deleted lines, due to incorrect end-of-file
	handling.  This	affected both aepatch -receive and aedist
	-receive, because aedist(1) now	includes patches for
	better merge behaviour.

	* Numerous issues concenting the new GNU Gettext versions
	have been addressed.

	* A number of Solaris build problems have been fixed, and
	one genuine bug	buried in the warning messages (change
	completion time	was wrong for changes not yet completed).

	* More information about the "mod times	extend into the
	future"	warning	issued by aeipass(1) has been added to
	the man	page.

	* Some improvements have been made to the web pages.

   Version 4.3
	* The notification shell scripts all now use sendmail
	consistently.  Autoconf	support	for locating sendmail is
	not yet	present.

	* A problem which caused a core	dump on	Cygwin has been
	fixed.

	* The aede(1) command now gives	a more informative error
	message	when files in a	branch require merging.

	* There	is now an interconnection between the aeib(1) and
	the aeb(1) command.  When you specify a	minimum	integrate
	begin, you also	get a minimum integrate	build.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused aenf(1) to dump core
	if you used the	file name accept pattern.

	* The executability or otherwise of each source	file is
	now remembered.	 If any	of the execute bits are	set at
	aede(1)	time, the file is remembed as executable.  When
	an executable file is copied into an integration
	directory or development directory, all	of the execute
	bits (minus the	project	umask) are set.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ``aecp -ind'' command,
	where it would give a ``there is no development
	directory'' error when you tried to extract a file
	version	from history of	a completed branch.

	* Many of the web pages	have been updated to provide a
	more consistent	and intuitive interface.  It is	also
	possible to get	patches, via the aepatch command.

	* Interrupts are now ignored during database writes.
	This should alleviate some of the problems induced by
	Ctrl-C.	 (It would be nice to find the actual cause.)

	* The aedist(1)	command	has been enhanved to include a
	patch fragment for modified files, as well as the whole
	source files.  On receipt, if the patch	applies	cleanly
	the whole source is ignored.  If the file does not exist
	at the receiving end, or the patch does	not apply
	cleanly, the whole source file is included.  The
	incrimental cost is very low, because all of the patch
	pieces appear in the source file, and thus compress
	exceptionally well.  The net result is to greatly reduce
	merge costs on recipt of .ae files.  However, this change
	to aedist(1) is	only backwards compatiple.  Previous
	versions of aedist(1) will give	a fatal	error if they see
	a .ae file generated by	this version of	aedist(1).

	* File name resolution is now more robust in the face of
	permission problems.

	* Some error message translations have been improved.

	* A small bug has been fixed in	the history labeling.

	* You can now use shell	(#) and	C++ (//) comments in your
	project	config file, if	you prefer them	to C comments.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the maintenance of the symlink
	farm.  It would	often fail to make all of the necessary
	symlinks.

	* There	is a new project attribute, protect_development_-
	directory, which when true causes the development
	directory to be	read-only in states between awaiting_-
	review and being_integrated.

	* A problem has	been fixed where some reports would fail
	is users had made their	.aegisrc files unreadable.

	* A number of small build problems have	been fixed.

	* Command completion has been added for	the aeb(1),
	ae_c(1), aeca(1), aecd(1), aechown(1), aeclean(1),
	aecp(1), aecpu(1), aedb(1), aedbu(1), aede(1), aedeu(1),
	aedn(1), aeib(1), aeibu(1), aeipass(1),	aeifail(1),
	aena(1), aencu(1), aend(1), aenf(1), aenfu(1), aeni(1),
	aenrv(1), aentu(1), ae_p(1), aepa(1), aera(1), aerb(1),
	aerbu(1), aerd(1), aerfail(1), aeri(1),	aerm(1),
	aermu(1), aerpass(1), aerpu(1),	aerrv(1) and aet(1)
	commands.  More	will be	added in the future.

	* It is	now possible to	specify	a directory to contain
	project	config file fragments.	These fragments	are then
	read in	as if catenated	as a single project config file.
	See aepfonf(5) for more	information.

   Version 4.2
	* There	is a new ``--No-Page-Headers'' option which may
	be used	to suppress page and column headers in listings
	and reports.

	* There	is a new ``aecp	-delta-from-change'' option,
	allowing the specification of a	delta number by
	specifying the number of a completed change.

	* The ``aecp -ind -delta'' command now omits files which
	did not	exist at the given delta.

	* There	is a new history_label_command which may be used
	to label your history files at each integration.  See
	aepconf(5) for more information.

	* The code which guesses which change you are working on,
	based on your current directory, has been enhanced to
	cover far more cases.  It can recognize	the integration
	directory, too.

	* There	is a new Change_Log report, which generates
	reports	in the style of	common Internet	change logs.

	* The web interface is now able	to show	you file
	differences between deltas.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ``aecp -delta'' command
	(for all delta variants).  The problem occurred	when you
	wanted to copy a version of the	file before the	file has
	been modified by the branch (but it wasonly a problem for
	files modified later in	the branch, files never	modified
	by the branch were OK).	 As a side-effect of the bug fix,
	``aecp -delta''	now goes significantly faster (N times
	faster,	where N	is the number of files you are copying).

	* Build	problems caused	by new Bison releases have been
	fixed.

	* A number of oversights in handling the new awaiting
	review state have been corrected.

	* The ${expr} substitution has been enhanced to	include
	modulo,	logical	not and	the six	relative operators.  All
	using the usual	C syntax and precedences.  See aesub(5)
	for more information.

	* There	is a new ${switch} substitution, see aesub(5) for
	more information.

	* A Russian localization of the	error messages has been
	contributed.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ``aecp -output'' code,
	which sometimes	incorrectly created directories.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the symbolic link maintenance
	code.  It now repairs links which point	to a file which
	is too deep in the ancestor tree, and has been
	subsequently replaced.	It now uses a single pass, rather
	than two passes.

	* The change_file_command field	of the project config
	file is	now available at a finer granularity.  There are
	8 new commands (the copy_file_command, copy_file_undo_-
	command, new_file_command, new_file_undo_command, new_-
	test_command, new_test_undo_command, remove_file_command
	and remove_file_undo_command fields) which may be
	individually configured.  They default to the previous
	behaviour, for backwards compatibility.	 See aepconf(5)
	for more information.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the aepatch(1) command, which
	prevented it form constructing patches for changes on
	completed branches.

	* The aeipass(1) command now issues an error message if
	the build changes a source file.  (Previously it
	erroneously reported that the history tool had done the
	damage.)

	* A bug	has been fixed in ``aecpu -unchanged'' in the
	case where the change had no files.  (It tried to uncopy
	a file called the empty	thring.)

	* The missing aemvu(1) man page	has been added.

   Version 4.1
	Note: You will need to upgrade all of your Aegis machines
	simultaneously for this	release.  It introduces	database
	changes	which older Aegis release will not be able to
	cope with.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aed(1), which	tried to access	a
	nonexistent files under	some circumstances.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aede.	 When two changes created
	the same file, the second change received a misleading
	message	from aede.

	* There	is a new German	message	translation.

	* There	is a new tkaepa(1) command, giving GUI access to
	the aepa(1) command.

	* The aeclone(1) command now runs the change_file_command
	and project_file_command from the project config file.
	This is	in order to be more consistent withthe aecp(1)
	command.

	* The "time safe" property described by	Damon Poole
	mostly applies to Aegis' operation.  One last area
	related	to future times	and the	--delta	options.  There
	is now a warning in the	instance where non-time-safe
	behavior may occur.

	* The history_put_command and history_create_command
	field of the project config file are strongly recommended
	to be identical.  It is	now possible to	only specify the
	first one, and the second will default to it.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the aeib(1) command, when the
	link_integration_directory field in the	project	config
	file is	false.

	* There	is a new awaiting review state,	and new	aerb(1)
	and aerbu(1) commands to go with it.  It is now	possible
	to configure your project to have changes enter	the
	awaiting review	state after aede(1), rather than the
	being reviewed state.  It is also possible to skip the
	review	states altogether and immediatelt enter	the
	awaiting integration state.

	* There	is a new modeP field for the specification of
	architectures in the project config file.  The means that
	you can	designate some architectures as	mandatory and
	some as	optional.  See aepconf(5) for more information.

	* The aenbr(1) command now populates the new branch's
	baseline with symlinks if the project config file is set
	so that	they would remain after	an integration build.
	This is	more consistent	with the aedb(1) behaviour in the
	same situation.

	* There	have been a number of changes to the web pages,
	accompanying the move to SourceForge, along with some
	corrections.

	* There	is a new aels(1) command, which	may be used to
	list directories, annotated with Aegis'	file attribute
	information.

	* The aeclean(1) command now accepts the -Keep option, so
	that it	reports	what it	would do, rather than actually do
	anything.

	* A problem with the CGI interface, which reported a bug
	to the user, has been fixed.

   Version 3.29

	* The aeimport(1) command can now import CVS repositories
	which contain binary files.

	* There	is a new ${Read_File_Simple} substritution.  It
	is like	${Read_File}, but is does not substitute into the
	file contents.

	* The aecp -independent	command	now accepts a -output
	option.

	* There	is a new ${environment}	substitution, allowing
	you to access environment variables within substitutions.
	See aesub(5) for more information.

	* There	is a new ${project-specific} substitution,
	allowing you to	define project specific	value to be
	inserted into various commands.	 See aesub(5) and
	aepconf(5) for more information.

	* The aefind(1)	command	now works with completed change.
	It searches the	baseline.

	* A problem with using the ${source} substitution within
	the integrate_pass_notify_command has been fixed.  It was
	getting	the path wrong.

	* The batch test command is only ever invoked of there
	are tests to run.  (This fixes a problem where it would
	simethimes run with no arguments.)

	* The web reports now bahave themselves	when the names of
	non-longer-here	user appear.

	* A number of errors and typos have been fixed in the
	documentation.

   Version 3.28
	* There	is a new aepatch(1) program, which may be used to
	send an	receive	changes	using the classic open source
	patch format.  See aepatch(1) for more information.

	* The general output mechanism (for listings and reports)
	has been rewritten to be significantly faster.

	* Numerous small things	have been improved in and around
	the

	* The web interface has	been improved.	It should result
	in better save file locations being suggested for .ae
	files.	cgi vs downloads

	* Aegis	now takes a baseline read lock during tests, so
	that the baseline doesn't move out from	under your tests,
	causing	mysterious failures.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the subst function of	the
	report generator.  It was free()in a string twice.

	* There	is a new ${developer email} substitution, for
	inserting users' preferred email addresses into	commands.
	Useful for the state transition	notification commands.

	* There	is now more text in the	aepconf(5) man page,
	explaining how each of the pattern fields are applied to
	file names.  It	is now explicit	when patterns applied to
	whole file names, and when they	only applied to	path name
	elements.

	* A segfault has been fixed in the removed file	whiteout
	code.

	* The aesub $source substitution now works in combination
	with the -BaseLine option.

	* The aegis.spec file now mentions the executables again.

   Version 3.27
	* A bug	has been fixed in the aesub(1) $delta
	substitution.  It now works correctly for completed
	changes.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aermu(1), when used in
	combination with the symlink farm.  It no longer
	complains about	"multiple user permissions set".

	* A serious bug	has been fixed in the locking code.  The
	bug meant that only one	build per project could	happen at
	a time.	 (There	was never any risk of repository or Aegis
	database damage.)

	* A bug	has been fixed in the aedist(1)	command.  It
	failed to correctly recognise files produced using the
	aedist -send -no-ascii-armour option.

	* The aecpu -unch command now deals more gracefully with
	files which have been removed from the project in the
	mean time.

	* There	is a new change	file history listing, similar to
	the file history report.  It is	much faster, much more
	informatuve, and less selective.

   Version 3.26
	* Some optimizations have been done to the input parsing.
	Depending on your architecture,	this will or won't be
	noticable.

	* The locking has been changed so that aeipass(1) takes
	precedence over	new development	builds,	so that	there is
	a guarantee that aeipass(1) will succeed in finite time.
	Current	development builds will	run to completion, but
	new development	builds will block until	the aeipass(1)
	gets the basline lock and subsequently completes.

	* The "file format error" bug in aedist(1) has been
	fixed.

	* There	is a new project activity report, which	is useful
	to project leaders to see what has been	happing	in the
	project, sorted	by time	and then by user name.

	* Aegis	can now	transparently cope with	binary files,
	even if	the history tool cannot.  It does this by using	a
	MIME encoding for binary files.	 (This can be configured
	away, if your history tool correctly handles binary
	files.)	 See aepconf(5)	and the	User Guide for more
	information.

	* There	is a fix for the "file unrelated" error	commonly
	seen on	Solaris	and BSD	when combined with an
	automounter, in	come cases.  It	relies on the bash(1)
	behaviour which	sets the $PWD environment variable.  (GNU
	libc does this internally to the getcwd(3) function, not
	all libcs do.)

	* The aer(1) report generator now has access to	the
	project	config file fields, through a new config field in
	the report generator's concept of the project state.

	* There	is a new aer(1)	$comdir	substitution, which gives
	access to the shared state directory, configured at build
	time.

	* The aebuffy(1) now accepts a project name on the
	command	line.

	* There	is a new build_covers_all_architectures	field in
	the project config file, so that you can tell Aegis that
	the build tool builds all architectures	wimultaneouasly.
	See aepconf(5) for more	information.

	* The tkaer(1) command now has a comment editor, so that
	you can	edit your review fail comments from within the
	GUI.

	* A bug	has been fixed which was caused	aenbru(1) to
	delete one directory level too deep when the branch was
	removed.

	* There	is a new getuid() function in the report
	generator.

	* This change fixed a bug in aede(1) where it would not
	allow a	branch,	created	with aeimport(1), with new files
	which had subsequently been modified to	end development,
	when those files had never existed in the baseline.

	* It is	now possible for project administrators	to
	nominate the developer in the tkaenc(1)	dialog.	 You are
	presented with a pick list.

	* There	is a new aesub(1) $history_directory
	substitution.  This may	be used	in scripts which access
	the history tool's files directly.

	* There	is a new change_file_undo_command field	of the
	project	config file.  It is similar to the change_file_-
	command	field (it defaults to it if unset), but	is
	executed by all	of the ``undo''	file commands.

	* The aede(1) command no longer	cancels	your build and
	test time stamps.  This	means that you don't need to re-
	build if you don't change anything, after aedeu(1) or
	aerfail(1).

   Version 3.25

	* It is	now possible to	remove users who's accounts have
	been removed (the affects the aera(1), aerd(1),	aeri(1)
	and aerrv(1) commands).

	* There	is a new --description-only option to the aeca(1)
	command.  This is useful for editing only the
	descrioption, and also for use within scripts.

	* The --file option has	now been generalized to	accept
	``-'' to mean the standard input.  This	is useful in
	scripts.

	* There	is a new aebuffy(1) command, which may be used to
	see what changes a user	has outstanding.  It needs X11
	(Tk/Tcl) to work.  Named after the xbuffy(1) command.

	* The tkaer(1) command now presents you	with a ``detail''
	button,	so that	you may	see the	change details when
	pwerforming a review.

	* The restriction that placed the function name	at the
	start of the command line (e.g.	the ``-cp'' of aecp) has
	been relaxed.  This may	now appear anywhere on the
	command	line.

	* The Bourne / BASH shell aliases have been improved, so
	that they now preserve quoting of special characters and
	white space.  This dates from the earliest days	of Aegis.
	It's wonderful to have it fixed	at last.

	* There	is a new aemvu(1) command, which may be	used to
	undo the effects of an aemv(1) command.	 This should
	prove less confusing than the previous method.

	* A big	has been fixed in the aemv(1) command.	It failed
	to accept the --base-relative option, even though it was
	documented to do so.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the quote_tcl() report
	function.  Is fixes the	problem	with getting the dollars
	sign into descriptions when using the tkaenc(1)	command.

	* The SCCS section of the User Guide and example
	configurations have been updated and confirmed to work
	correctly, however I've	only tested this with GNU CSSC.

	* A bug	in the file name handling has been fixed.  This
	was most obvious around	the aecpu(1) command when you had
	create_symlinks_before_build turned on and you were using
	an automounter,	but it occured at other	times as well.

	* The aeimport(1) command now understands the SCCS
	format.	 If the	comments in GNU	CSSC are accurate, this
	also means you can import BitKeeper repositories, however
	I am unable to confirm this.

   Version 3.24

	* There	is a new aeimport(1) command, which may	be used
	to import CVS archives into Aegis.

	* The cross branch merge has been improved so that it
	uses an	earlier	version	number than it was using,
	resulting in a more sensable merge.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ${quote} substitution which
	incorrectly quoted the exclamation mark	(!).
	Unfortunately, quoting isn't at	all simple, because you
	can't exclusively use single quotes or double quotes or
	backslash.

	* There	is now a ${change description} substitution,
	allowing you access to the brief description of	a change
	in a substitution.  (The suggested RCS history command
	have been changed to use it.)

	* A Dutch localization of the error messages has been
	contributed.

	* Project administrators can also use the aeibu(1)
	command.  Handy	for abandoned integrations which
	inconvenience everyone else.

	* There	is a new project config	file field, called
	build_covers_all_architectures,	which allows you to tell
	Aegis that your	build process can cover	all architectures
	simultaneously.

	* The ${quote} substitution has	been fixed to correctly
	quote more characters.	It now prefers the single quote
	(but is	is npt possible	to use this exclusively).

	* The web site now uses	PDF files for documentation,
	rather than gzipped PostScript.	 This was for lots of
	reasons, including the fact theat many folks couldn't
	work out how to	print them, and	also IE	decompressed them
	``for free'' but left the .gz suffix.

	* The report generator,	aereport(1), can now access
	fields of the email address in various reports.	 * The
	``aecp -delta''	command	now adds removed files to the
	change as removed files	instead	of adding them as copied-
	but-empty files.  This should make reproducing projects
	more accurate, but you need to use aermu(1) to get rid of
	them ,rather than aecpu(1).

	* The aedist program now adds a	``Content-Disposition''
	header to the files it generates.  This	means MIME
	programs will unpack it	into a correctly named file more
	often.

	Numerous build problems	have been fixed, both for Unix
	and for	Cygwin (Windows).  There have benn some	test
	script improvements, too.

	Contributions have started to roll in using the
	``aedist'' format.  This is very encouraging.  The
	instructions for how to	do this	are contained in the
	``Howto'', in the Developer section.

   Version 3.23

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused the	report generator
	change_number function to give garbage answers for change
	number zero (fortunalely, not very common).

	* There	is a new mtime function	in the report generator.

	* There	is a new aecomp	utility, which may be used to
	compare	two active changes, using tkdiff.

	* A bug	in ``aesub ${dd}'' which reported the wrong
	directory when applied to branches, has	been fixed.

	* The project config file now contains two new fields,
	create_symlinks_before_integration_build and remove_-
	symlinks_after_integration_build, which	may be used to
	better control the behavior of the symlink farm	at
	integration time.  (Default behavior is	backwards
	compatible.)

	* A new	utility	called tkaer has been contributed.  It is
	for reviewing, and shows you lists of files.  When you
	click on one, it launches tkdiff(1) to examine it.
	You're going to	like this one, folks!

	* The aedist -receive command now preserves the	testing
	exemptions, if possible.

	* A problem with very very large test runs and the --no-
	persevere option has been fixed.

	* The aenf(1) and aent(1) commands now accept --template
	and --no-template options, to control the use of new file
	templates.

	* A nasty Catch-22 in the aedist(1) command has	been
	fixed, involving the (unnecessary) use of new file
	templates, when	the actual template files don't	yet exist
	in the --receive development directory.

   Version 3.22
	* Please Note: Some code has been added	to Aegis to
	assist in diagnosing problems when restoring projects
	from backups.  If you see a message ``aegis: project-
	path: has been tampered	with (fatal)'' this means there
	are problems with the project file ownerships.	The
	project	owner needs to be >= AEGIS_UID (defaults to 100),
	and the	project	group needs to be >= AEGIS_GID (defaults
	to 10).	 Use chown -R and/or chgrp -R to fix these
	problems.

	* The aesub(1) command now accepts the ${arch}
	substitution in	combination with the -baseline option.

	* A bugs has been fixed	in the aedist -receive command,
	when one of the	files was also locked for review.

	* A bug	in aeclone(1) has been fixed, where it dropped
	file move information.

	* The aeib(1) command now correctly validates that youare
	actually allowed to do this integration.  This may win
	the prize for the oldest Aegis bug.

	* There	is a new ${search_path_executable} substitution.
	See aesub(5) and aet(1)	for more information.

	* Line wrapping	in reports works properly again	for lines
	with no	white space.  The previous release broke it when
	the wide output	generalization was added.

	* The aet -nopersever option works again.  The previous
	release	broke it when the batch	test support has
	implemented.

	* A problem with the aeb(1) command which made it
	difficult to use with th symbolic link farm (in	some
	cases) has been	fixed.

	* A new	report is available from the web interface,
	showing	a change-of-state histogram over time for all
	state transitions (not just the	integrate pass
	transitions).

	* A problem with the aenf(1) command which made	it
	difficult to use with th symbolic link farm (in	some
	cases) has been	fixed.

	* The aeipass(1) command now preserve file mod times
	across history updates,	if the history tool gratuitously
	changes	them.

	* The Solaris and IRIX build problems (wputc, et al) has
	been fixed.

	* Numerous documentation patches were received and have
	been applied.

   Version 3.21
	* A couple of minor bugs have been fixed in aedist,
	especially the problem with sending an baseline	image
	while a	change is being	reviewed.

	* A couple of bugs have	been fixed in the tkae*	commands,
	in partucular they no longer leave temporary files lying
	around.

	* Lots of stuff	has been added to the HOWTO: a cheat
	sheet, how to change a project's owner,	how to use
	distributed development, how to	become a developer.

	* The problem which caused `aesub ${copyright_years}' to
	contain	duplicates has been fixed.

	* There	have been Y2K fixes: the date parsing for the
	-delta-date option has been fixed, and the web page data
	has also been fixed.

	* The aet(1) command can now run more than one test at
	once, if configured appropriately.  This is of most use
	on systems with	more than one CPU.

	* The -UNFormatted option no longer truncates column
	values.

	* The aesub(1) command now accepts the -baseline option,
	so that	you can	get project-specific substitution in
	shell scripts.

	* A bug	has been fixed in tkaenc(1) which gave incorrect
	testing	ssttings.  It now also tracks the project testing
	exemptions.

	* A bug	in aenf(1) has been fixed which	allowed	multiple
	instances of the same file to be created.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused `aesub
	${search_path}'	to fail	in some	cases.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aenf(1) which	allowed	you to
	create the same	file multiple times, corrupting	Aegis'
	database and causing aede(1) to	report mysterious errors.
	Use aenfu(1) multiple times to untangle	things.

	* Information has been added to	the section 5 manual
	pages, detailing how to	access state information from
	within the report generator.  This should make writing
	report scripts a little	easier.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused Aegis to misbehave
	when launched by some versions of cron(8) or at(1).

   Version 3.20
	* The aeib command is now more robust about ``foreign''
	files in the baseline (e.g. root-owned core files).

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ${administrator_list}
	substitution.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the aedist --delta option,
	which caused it	to dump	core.

	* There	is now a section in the	History	Tool chapter of
	the User Guide describing how to add checksums to your
	history	files, in order	to detect file corruptions.  It
	is a general technique which applies to	most history
	tools (including RCS).

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused aeclone to misbehave
	badly when dealing with	removed	files.

	* There	is now an embryonic ``How To'' document	for
	Aegis.	Please feel free to contribute subjects.

	* You can now say ``-BRanch -''	as a synonym for the
	``-TRunk option, for those commands which accept it.

	* The report generator now copes with more types of empty
	lists.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused a core dump	instead
	of a useful error message if you tried to create an alias
	with an	illegal	name.

	* A bug	has been removed which left undeletable	branch
	aliases	if a branch was	removed.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aenbru which failed to remove
	the branch development directory .

	* The aenf(1) command now behaves better when you do
	horrible things	like turn the files you	created	into
	directories without telling Aegis first.

	* A couple of small bugs have been fixed in the	aenpa(1)
	command, both in error situations.

	* A bug	with the -interactive option has been fixed.  It
	will actually ask you, now.

   Version 3.19
	* You can now run a command to generate	new file
	templates if you want, rather than using a simple string
	substitution.  See aenf(1), aent(1) and	aepconf(5) for
	more information.  The existing	functionality is still
	there.

	* There	is a new ${SUBSTitute} substitution, which
	provides regular expression substitutions.  This is
	useful in new file templates.

	* A bug	has been fixed which allowed aede of a branch
	when there were	some kinds of outstanding changes.

	* The automatic	change number guessing has been	improved
	slightly, and will cope	with some more variation in the
	development_directory_template field.

	* There	are two	new commands, aenpa(1) and aerpa(1) for
	creating and removing project aliases.	This means that
	you can	give project branches more meaningful names.

	* There	is a new aesub(1) command.  It substitutes its
	arguments and prints them, rather like the echo(1)
	command.  This is useful when you need access to the
	Aegis substitutions in a script.

	* The command line option ``--'' is now	understood.  It
	means ``the rest of the	arguments on the command line are
	filenames or strings''.	 Because this makes the	options
	on the command line more "order	sensitive" than	usual,
	use with care.

	* There	is a new tkaenc(1) command, allowing you to
	create new change via a	Tcl/Tk GUI.  (And a problem with
	TCL special characters in description text has been
	fixed.)

	* The aenf(1) command now does the right thing with
	directories named on the command line.	In particular,
	you can	now use	``aenf .'' to import whole directory
	trees.

	* There	is a new State-File-Name list type, useful when
	writing	cookbooks or makefiles to keep a web page in sync
	with a change.

	* There	is a new ${capitalize} substitution, useful for
	putting	in new file templates.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused aeclean to delete the
	development directory of changes with no files.

   Version 3.18

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused aecp -delta	to dump
	core in	some cases.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused the	create-symlinks-
	before-build functionality to create symlinks to deleted
	files.

	* Still	more typos and minor errors have been corrected
	in the documentation.

	* The aerp(1) man page has been	moved to aerpass(1).
	Similarly for aerfail(1), aeipass(1) and aeifail(1).
	This should make things	easier for users to find the man
	pages.

   Version 3.17
	* Another aedist bug has been fixed - unfortunately it
	was introduced while trying to fix the last one.

	* A Cygwin 20.1	portability bug	has been fixed.

	* There	is a new ${dirname_relative} substitution.  This
	is useful in new file templates, and also some configured
	commands.

   Version 3.16
	* There	is a new tkaeca	command.  It is	a GUI interface
	to the aeca(1) command,	using Tcl/Tk.

	* There	are two	new reports available: the Project-
	Branches and Project-Active-Branches reports may be used
	to query about branches	within a project.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the aedist -receive duplicate
	suppression code.  It was complaining about user
	permissions.

	* A bug	has been fixed in aeb(1), which	did strange
	things if you tried to build an	unbuildable change.

	* There	is a new -No-WhiteOut option for the aerm(1) and
	aemv(1)	commands, letting you suppress the ``whiteout''
	files, along with some explanation in the man page about
	why they are there.  See aerm(1) for more information.

	* The default value of the ``maximum_filename_length''
	field of the project config file has been raised from 14
	to 255.	 If your project depends on the	old default
	value, you will	need to	set it explicitly.

	* The aedist -receive command now accepts a -directory
	option,	so you can specifiy the	location of the
	development directory.

   Version 3.15

	* The ``aedist -receive'' command now accepts a	-delta
	option,	allowing a received change set to be applied to
	an historical version.

	* There	is now some information	about managing super-
	projects and sub-projects in the Branching chapter of the
	User Guide.

	* The aenpr(1) command now accepts a -keep option, so
	that you can re-attach projects	moved after using the
	aermpr -keep command.  See aenpr(1) for	more information.

	* The aenpr(1) command now accepts -edit and -file
	options, allowing you to specify project attributes when
	creating the project.  See aenpr(1) for	more information.

	* If the project developers_may_create_changes attribute
	is true, the aencu(1) command now allows developers to
	destroy	changes	they created.

	* There	is a new add_path_suffix substitution, for
	manipulating search paths.  See	aesub(5) for more
	information.

	* There	are 3 new substitutions: ${bindir}, ${datadir}
	and ${libdir}.	These are replaced by the ./configure
	options	of the same name (or the values	calculated, if
	none were given	to ./configure).  The old ${lib}
	substitution is	deprecated in favour of	the new
	${datadir} substitution.  See aesub(5) for more
	information.

	* Some changes have been made which increases
	portability, particularly the Linux libc5 vs libc6
	differences.

	* Some changes have been made which increases
	portability, particularly for Windows NT.  This	isn't to
	say Aegis works	under Windows NT yet, but it helps the
	porting	efforts.  Don't	forget to run the mkpasswd and
	mkgroup	utilities included in the Cygwin system.

   Version 3.12
	* The way the Apache config files are scanned for and
	read has been changed, to adapt	to recent Apache changes.
	The ./configure	script will now	find it	more often.

	* The ``aedist -receive'' command has been enhanced to be
	more robust about change sets without headers (some
	browsers generously strip them all off.

	* A bug	has been fixed in the ``aedist -receive'' command
	which sometimes	caused decompression failures.	An
	unfortunate interaction	with the Windows NT support
	caused CRLF sequences in the compressed	data to	be
	mangled	in some	cases.

	* The wrong include file was being used	for zlib.  This
	has been fixed,	so it should build more	easily now.

	* The way MANPATH is handled on	Linux has been improved
	in the chsrc and profile commands.  It will not	over-ride
	/etc/man.config	now.

	* The aegis.cgi	script has been	made more robust in
	coping with aedist errors.

	* The symlink_exception	field of the project config file
	now accepts filename patterns, not simply literal
	filenames.

	* There	was a problem compiling	with gcc 2.8, involving
	the <stdarg.h> header.	This has been fixed.

   Version 3.11
	* The aet(1) command now accepts a --force option,
	forcing	tests to be run, even if Aegis doesn't think they
	need to.

	* The Aegis CGI	interface has been enhanced so that you
	can download changes from the generated	web pages listing
	the changes, using the aedist command.

	* The aedist --send command now	accepts	a --no-ascii-
	armor option, which leaves off the MIME	base 64	encoding.
	Useful for binary distributions	and web	servers.

	* There	is a new trojan_horse_suspect field in the
	project	config file.  This is used by aedist --receive to
	check for files	which could be abused to carry Trojan
	horse attacks.

	* The aedist --receive command now accepts a --trojan
	option which treats the	incoming change	set as suspect,
	and a --no-trojan option which treats the incoming change
	set as benign.

	* The aedist --receive command now quotes filenames (if
	necessary) when	executing commands, thus defending
	against	filenames which	contain	semicolons.

	* The aenbru(1)	command	has been implemented at	last.  At
	last!  You no longer need to use the aedbu work-around.

	* The aedbu(1) command now gives an error if you attempt
	to apply it to a branch.

	* The aermpr(1)	command	may now	be applied to a	project
	with active branches, and will remove the branches as
	well (provided there are no active changes on any of the
	branches).

	* The dos_filename_required and	windows_filename_required
	fields of the project config file have been enhanced to
	reject the brain-dead Windows special filenames	such as
	``aux''	et al.

	* The ${user} and ${project} substitutions have	been
	enhanced to provide additional information when	given an
	additional argument.  Useful for file templates.  See
	aesub(5) for more information.

	* Several portability enhacements, notably the Windows
	filename incompatibility has been fixed, and also the
	Linux stdlib.h problem.

   Version 3.10

	* As of	this release you must have zlib	installed before
	you can	build Aegis.

	* There	is a new reuse_change_numbers project attribute,
	letting	you control whether aenc fills in holes	in the
	change number sequence.	 Defaults to true if not set.
	See aepattr(5) for more	information.

	* There	is a new integrate_begin_exceptions field in the
	project	config file.  This permits the user to specify
	file to	be omitted when	the integration	directory
	copy/link is performed.

	* The aet(1) command has been changed so that it does not
	exit with an error if you have a test exemption	but no
	tests.	This is	no longer an error.

	* There	is a new aedist(1) command, which may be used to
	send and receive Aegis change sets via e-mail and the
	web.

	* The aeclone(1), aenbr(1), aenc(1) commands now accept	a
	-output	option,	a file to contain the automatically
	generated change number.  This greatly assists in writing
	scripts.  See the man pages for	more information.

	* The aent(1) command now accepts a -output option, a
	file to	contain	the automatically generated file name.
	See the	man pages for more information.

	* There	is a new compres_database field	in the project
	attributes, allowing the Aegis database	to be stored in	a
	compressed form	(using the GNU Zip algorthm).  Unless you
	have an	exceptionally large project, coupled with fast
	CPUs and high network latency, there is	probably very
	little benefit in using	this feature.  (The database is
	usually	less than 5% of	the size of the	repository.)  On
	slow networks, however,	this can sometimes improve the
	preformance of file-related commands.

   Version 3.9
	* A bug	in the merge command has been fixed.  It no
	longer deletes all of your change source files if one of
	the merge commands fails.

	* There	is a new tkaegis command, using	Tk/Tcl to give
	Aegis a	GUI.  Contributed by Graham Wheeler
	<gram@cdsec.com>.  Please report tkaegis bugs and
	suggestions to Graham.

	* The integrate	pass command has been enhanced to cope
	with RCS and SCCS expanding keywords in	source files
	(modifying the repository) on check-in.	 This can be
	ignored, or a warning can be issued, or	it can be a fatal
	error (this is the default).  See aeipass(1) for more
	information.

	* The worked example in	the User Guide has (finally!)
	been updated to	use the	new branch numbering.  Numerous
	spelling errors	have been corrected.

	* The developer	section	of the worked example chapter now
	also includes discussion of some common	questions raised
	by folks evaluating Aegis.  It covers insulating
	development directories	from the baseline, partial check-
	in and collaboration.

	* The aesub(5) man page	now brings attention to	the fact
	that the ${Copyright_Years} substitution contains spaces.
	You often need to quote	it.

	* The man pages	which mention filename limitations, now
	also note that where underlying	file-system has	stricter
	filename length	limitations than the filename_maximum_-
	length field in	the project config file, the file-system
	wins.  Mention of this is now also present in aedb(1),
	etc; Linux UMSDOS is highlighted as problematic.

	* Aegis	can now	collect	code metrics.  See aeb(1) and
	aeipass(1) for more information.

	* There	are three new report functions available:
	quote_url, quote_html and unquote_url.	These are all for
	use when creating Aegis	reports	for the	CGI interface.
	See aer(5) for more information.

	* There	are several new	substitutions available.  These
	include	subst, trim_extension, trim_directory, and
	trim_filename.	See aesub(5) for more information.

	* The integrate_q.sh script now	works correctly	for
	branches.

	* Numerous configure, make and install problems	have been
	fixed for a variety of portability targets.

	* The RPM spec file has	been corrected to use appropriate
	file attributes.

   Version 3.8
	* Some users were unable to build the previous release,
	due to inconsistent wide character support by the various
	UNIX vendors.  This has	now been fixed.

	* There	are two	new substitutions, trim_directory and
	trim_extension,	which are useful for constructing file
	templates.  These can be very useful in	constructing
	skeletons of C++ classes.

	* Some changes have been made to pathname handling to
	better cope with automounters.	See aegis(1) for more
	information (see discussion of the AEGIS_AUTOMOUNT_POINTS
	environment variable).	This assumes that paths	below the
	automounter's mount directory are echoes of paths without
	it (e.g. /home is the trigger, and /tmp_mnt/home is where
	the NFS	mount is performed, with /home appearing to be a
	symlink).

   Version 3.7

	* The aeifail(1) and aerfail(1)	commands now have a new
	--reason option, to specify the	failure	reason on the
	command	line, rather than in a file.

	* Some file operations are now faster.	Mostly,	this
	applies	to operations which mention many files,	and to
	projects with large numbers of files.  Smaller projects
	may not	notice any improvement.

	* There	is a new --delta-date option to	the aecp(1)
	command, allowing deltas to be extracted by date.  This
	change also had	the side-effect	of making extraction by
	delta number more accurate on branches.

	* There	is a new --base-relative option	to most	of the
	file manipulation commands, aecp(1), aenf(1), etc.  This
	option may be used to specify that relative filenames are
	relative to the	base of	the source tree, rather	than the
	current	directory.  There is also a related user
	preference, see	aeuconf(5) for more information.

	* There	is a new ``aeclean'' command.  It can be used to
	clean your development directories of non-source files.
	See aeclean(1) for more	information.

	* The aeb(1) command now passes	through	arguments of the
	form name=value, on the	assumption that	these are
	variable assignments for th ebuild tool.  Previously,
	they were ``resolved'' as if they were file names.

	* A serious bug	in the error and interrupt handling has
	been fixed.  This bug would sometimes case Aegis to hang,
	and eventually run out of stack, when the user attempted
	to interrupt Aegis using ^C.

   Version 3.6
	* The diff3_command field of the project config	file has
	been replaced by a merge_command field.	 It works exactly
	the same way, but Aegis	moves the files	around first, so
	that the output	replaces the change source file.  This
	results	in fewer ``lost'' merges.  Those of you	who have
	been hacking the diff3_command to move the files around
	will need to take the moves out	when you rename	the
	diff3_command field to be the new merge_command	field.

	* The columnizing functions used by the	report generator
	and the	listings has been enhanced to understand
	international character	sets.  This allows native
	character sets to be used in comments and descriptions,
	without	getting	gibberish (C escapes) in the output.

	* There	is a new shell_safe_filenames field in the
	project	config file.  This field controls whether
	filenames are required to be free of shell special
	characters.  This field	defaults to true if not	set, so
	if you are using any ``interesting'' filenames,	you may
	need to	explicitly set this field to false.  (You still
	can't use spaces or international characters in
	filenames.)

	* There	is a new ${quote} substitution for insulating
	shell special characters in filenames in the commands in
	the project config file.

	* A number of bugs relating to environment variables have
	been corrected;	this will make the aereport and	aefind
	commands behave	more consistently, with	respect	to the
	aegis command.

	* A bug	has been fixed which caused the	final newline of
	new test files to be omitted.

	* A bug	which prevented	the ``aeb -minimum'' option from
	working	in any non-trivial case	has been fixed.

   Version 3.5
	* A bug	was fixed in the lock waiting code.  Aegis will
	now correctly wait for locks when there	are several users
	blocking on the	same lock.

   Version 3.4
	* There	is a new ``aegis -clone'' command, used	to
	replicate changes across branches.  See	aeclone(1) for
	more information.

	* There	is a new ``-No-Wait'' command line option, which
	asks for a fatal error if a lock cannot	be obtained
	immediately; this applies to all commands which	takes
	locks.	See aeuconf(5) for more	information.

   Version 3.3
	This release is	a bug fix release, and mostly install and
	portability bug, at that.

	* The problem with errno defines messing up glue.c has
	been fixed.

	* Numerous fixes to the	wide character support,	to cope
	with the vagueries of wide character support on	many
	platforms.

	* The problem with the LINES and COLS environment
	variables messing up testing have been fixed.  Some tests
	gave false negatives because of	this.

	* There	is a new aeb -minimum option, for use with
	symbolic links,	only, which has	a minimal set of source
	file links, rather than	everything in the baseline.

   Version 3.2
	* There	are some additional reports available via the web
	interface.  They are mainly to extract error causes and
	trends from the	project	history	statistics.

	* There	have been a number of minor bug	fixes concerning
	the handling of	old 2.3	projects.  This	should ease
	transition for users with existing 2.3 projects.

	* A bug	in aecp	-delta has been	fixed, where Aegis was
	trying to find change state files one branch level too
	high.

	* There	is now a re-try	performed when a stale NFS file
	handle error is	detected.  This	should make it easier for
	some sites which are heavily networked.

	* There	have been some improvements to the way Control-C
	is handled.  It	should be more responsive when waiting
	for locks.

	* Project administrators may now end development of a
	branch.	 Since branches	can endure for months or years,
	the orginal branch creator may have moved on.  This copes
	with this situation.

   Version 3.1
	Version	3.0 was	not used by many sites.	 It was	available
	as beta	software for about a year, in numerous
	incarnations.  Version 3.1 is the first	completely stable
	version	since adding full branching support.

   Version 3.0
	Version	3.0 is fully backwards compatible with earlier
	versions, however once a project has been used under 3.0,
	it will	not be possible	to revert, e.g.	to version 2.3,
	without	restoring the project's	``info'' directory from
	backup.	 While this was	generally true of previous
	releases, any additional state information was usually
	undo-able with vi(1).  This time the process is	much more
	involved because the project state files and the change
	state files have been combined as a necessary step in
	implementing branches.

   Version 3.0 Major New Features
	* Aegis	now has	a feature known	in the literature as long
	transactions, also known as branches.  This allows
	appropriately created changes to be treated as if they
	were projects, and thus	to have	changes	made to	them.
	This allows a hierachy of changes within changes, to any
	desired	depth.	See the	Branching chapter of the Aegis
	User Guide for more information.

	* The project state files have been merged with	the
	change state files.  This is part of the implementation
	of branching.  If you have written your	own reports, you
	may need to alter them slightly.  For example, in version
	2.3 and	earlier, reports accessed the project state file
	using
		auto p,	ps;
		p = project[project_name()];
		ps = p.state;
	Because	the project state has been moved into a	change
	state, the state field above now points	at a change state
	description, and most of the old project information is
	contained in the branch	field within it.  Reports access
	this information as
		auto p,	ps;
		p = project[project_name()];
		ps = p.state.branch;
	Except for files, which	were already present in	the
	cstate,	so access to the project file list need	not
	change.	 See the new aecstate(5) for more information.

	* The new project command now creates branches to match
	the version number specified.  See aenpr(1) for	more
	information.

	* The error messages of	Aegis have been
	internationalized.  This affects how you build Aegis, and
	the environment	Aegis runs in.	See the	BUILDING file for
	more information.  The cshrc and profile shipped with
	this release set the LANG environment variable to ``en''
	(for English) if you have not set it; otherwise	ther
	error messages would be	terse and uninformative.

	* The aet (1) command can now suggest tests to be run.
	This is	done by	correlating the	source files and test
	files from each	change.	 See aet(1) for	more information.

	* There	is now an aereport(1) command.	The separates out
	the report functionality from the main body of the Aegis
	code, allowing the report generator to be used in places
	where more trust is required.

	* There	is an intranet Web interface, which is installed
	automaticly when the install script discovers a	web
	server.	 This interface	allows browsing	of much	of the
	Aegis meta-data, of all	publicly accessible projects.

	* There	is now an aefind(1) command.  This is very
	similar	to the UNIX find(1) command, except that it finds
	in the unified directory stack of a change and its
	project.  The introduction of full branch support can
	sometimes mean that finding a file may require looking in
	more than two directories; the aefind(1) command makes
	this simple again.

   Version 3.0 Minor New Features
	* There	is now a -No_Pager option, to prevent listings
	and help from being redirected to a pager.  There is also
	a user preference to more thoroughly disable paging, and
	a -PAGer option	to override it.	 See aegis(1) and
	aeuconf(5) for more information.

	* There	is now a -No_PErsevere option to aet(1), allowing
	you to request that aet(1) stop	after the first	test
	failure.  There	is also	a user preference to set this
	permanently if desired,	and a -PErsever	option to
	override it.  See aet(1) and aeuconf(5)	for more
	information.

	* The copyright	years attribute	has been moved from being
	a project attribute to a change	attribute.  This is
	consistent with	a number of other fields which have
	transparently moved from the project state files into the
	change state files, as a result	of branching support.
	See aeca(1) and	aecattr(5) for more information.

	* There	is a new Search_Path substitution, to support
	builds on branches.  See aesub(5) for more information.
	As a side effect, you can also use it in the test_command
	field of the project config file, and thus have	a search
	path to	look down for data files for your tests.

	* Test times are now remembered, so that tests are only
	run if they need to be.	 This allows you to keep working
	on a test, and Aegis only runs those that have not yet
	passed.

	* Aegis	now uses ``fingerprints'' to tell if files have
	changed, rather	than simply relying on file modification
	time stamps.  While this makes Aegis more robust, there
	is one caveat: it is recommended that 3.0 be installed
	when there are no changes in the 'being	reviewed' or
	'awaiting integration' states, in any project.

	* There	is now a log file prefernces control, allowing
	users to set their preferred logging behaviour.	 See
	aeuconf(5) for more information.

	* It is	now possible to	specify	the filename for new
	tests on the command line.  See	aent(1)	for more
	information.

	* It is	not possible to	specify	a pattern for test
	filesnames.  See aepconf(5) for	more information.

	* There	is now a -MAXimum option to the	aeib command,
	allowing you to	keep obsolete derived files at integrate
	begin.	This can avoid long integration	build times for
	large projects.

   Version 3.0 Bug Fixes
	* Architecture names are now checked a `develop	end'
	time, to ensure	there are no unknown variants.	This
	fixes the mysterious ``you must	build again'' problem.

	* The aecp(1) and aed(1) commands now take a baseline
	read lock, to be more symetric with the	aeb(1) command
	which has always done so.  The aeipass(1) command takes
	the complementary baseline write lock, ensuring	the the
	baseline remains constant for the duration of builds,
	file copies, differences and merges.  The manual entries
	for these commands have	all been improved to document
	this behaviour.	 See aeb(1), aecp(1), aed(1) and
	aeipass(1) for more information.

	* There	are now	some reminder scripts in the library,
	which can be run from crontab(1).  These are installed
	into the /remind directory.  These scripts can be used to
	remind users of	changes	in various states, such	as those
	being developed	or being reviewed.

	* All of the commands which accept the -Edit option now
	also accept a -Edit_BackGround option, allowing	edit
	commands to be piped in	from the standard input.

	* The aecp(1) command now accepts a -INDependent option,
	allowing files to be copied independent	of any change
	(similar to the	-INDependent option of the command.)  See
	aecp(1)	for more information.

	* The aecp(1) command now accepts a -Read_Only option,
	allowing files to be copied into a change specifically to
	insulate it from baseline changes.  Such files must be
	uncopied before	development may	end.  See aecp(1) for
	more information.

	* The aenrls(1)	command	is now used only to convert
	pre-3.0	projects into post-3.0 projects.  This is because
	the full branching support in 3.0 makes	it more	useful to
	create a new release of	a project by ending development
	on the branch of the previous release and starting
	development of a new branch numbered for the new release.
	See the	Branching chapter of the User Guide for	more
	information.

   Version 2.3
	* The merging behaviour	of the aed(1) command has
	changed.  If any files require merging,	it only	merges.
	In this	way, merged files are not lost in the rest of the
	output.	 Also, there are now command line options and
	user preferences so that you can select	to only	merge or
	only difference.  See aed(1) and aeuconf(5) for	more
	nformation.

	* It is	now possible to	assign symbolic	names to project
	deltas.	 This means that you may now recreate earlier
	project	baselines by name.

	* All commands which accept a -Edit option now check for
	most errors before commencing the edit.	 This avoids
	wasted edits in	many error cases.

	* Fuzzy	file name matches are now used to improve the
	error messages from aecp, aerm,	etc.

	* Version number separators in project names are
	preserved across new releases.	Particularly, you can use
	a minus	('-') between the name and the major version
	number.

	* A new	``copyright_years'' project attribute has been
	added.	This is	a list of years	maintained at integrate
	begin time, to automate	the insertion of list of
	copyright years	into copyright messages	and
	documentation.	There is a new ${Copyright_Years}
	substitution and the copyright years are also listed in
	the ``aegis -list version'' listing.  See aesub(5) and
	ael(1) for more	information.

	* It is	now possible to	specify	patterns for acceptable
	and unacceptable filenames in the project config file.
	See aepconf(5) for more	information.

	* Four more functions have been	added to the report
	language: length, split, substr	and wrap.  See aer(5) for
	more information.

	* The tests distributed	with  are now more stable on very
	fast hosts.  See the environment variables section of
	aeb(1) for more	information.

	* The lib/config.example directory of the distribution
	now contains files with	example	portions of the	project
	config file.  May thanks to David R Shue
	<shue@ll.mit.edu> for this suggestion.

	Changes	made in	the previous release included:

   Version 2.2
	This release of	Aegis provides 3 of the	most commonly
	requested features: support for	heterogeneous
	development, support for a greater range of DMTs, support
	for user-defined reports.

	* Aegis	now supports heterogeneous development.	 Now you
	can be sure that your project not only always builds and
	tests sucessfully, but that it does so across a
	configurable set of system or hardware architectures.
	See the	Heterogeneous Development secion of the	Tips and
	Traps chapter of the User Guide	for more information.

	* Aegis	can now	cope with a wider range	of Dependency
	Maintenance Tools (DMTs).  It now has the ability to fill
	development directories	with symbolic links to all files
	in the baseline	which are not present in the development
	directory.  This allows	DMTs to	assume all files are
	present	below the current directory, allowing DMTs such
	as cake	and GNU	Make to	be used.  See the Dependency
	Maintenance Tool section of the	User Guide and aeb(1) for
	more information.

	* Aegis	now has	a report generator, so you can create
	your own reports.  Many	"canned" reports are included in
	this distribution; of particular interest to many will be
	the File_Activity report, which	details	currently active
	files.	See aer(1) for more information.

	* Aegis	is now configured using	a shell	script called
	configure, distributed with the	package.  This shell
	script is generated using GNU Autoconf.	 See the BUILDING
	file for more information.

	* The AEGIS environment	variable has been renamed
	AEGIS_PATH, to bring it	in line	with the AEGIS_PROJECT
	and AEGIS_CHANGE environment variable names.  The old
	name will keep working for some	time, but aegis	will warn
	you.

	* Filename lengths are now configurable.  The 14
	character portability limit is still the default, but a
	higher limit is	configurable for each project, up to the
	filesystem filename limit.  See	aepconf(5) for more
	information.

	* It is	now possible to	specify	that filenames must be
	within the minimum character set mandated by POSIX.  The
	default	is as before, to allow any printing character.
	See aepconf(5) for more	information.

	* Limits on the	length of project names	have been
	relaxed.  Project names	are now	only limited by	the
	filesystem filename limit.

	* It is	now possible to	specify	the command to run tests,
	allowing a project to use a specialized	test facility,
	rather than be forced to use shell scripts.  See aet(1)
	and for	more information.

	* The commands which accept the	-Edit now preserve the
	edited text in the event of a failure.

	* The commands which delete files now accept a
	-Interactive option, which causes them to prompt the user
	for confirmation of file deletion.  This can be	made the
	default	by an appropriate setting of the aliases or
	individual users preferences files.  See aenfu(1),
	aentu(1), aecpu(1), and	aeuconf(5) for more information.

	* The aecp(1) command now accepts directory names,
	allowing whole directory trees to be copied into a
	change.	 The aecpu(1) command now has a	-UNChanged option
	which allows the unchanged files to be uncopied.

	* The aeb command now accepts file names, allowing
	partial	builds to be performed.	 See aeb(1) for	more
	information.

	* There	is a new aechown(1) command to facilitate
	reassigning the	developer of a change which is in the
	being developed	state.

	* It is	now possible for project administrators	to assign
	changes	to specific developers.	 See aedb(1) for more
	information.

   Version 2.1
	* Can now ask for history to maintained	for file
	generated by the build.	 This is useful	for generating
	patch files.

   Version 2.0
	* A new	command	has been added to facilitate changing the
	name of	a file as part of a change.  See aemv(1) for more
	information.

	* It is	now possible to	list the locks currently held.
	See ael(1) for more information.

	* If no	other defaulting mechanism is specified, aegis
	will now attempt to guess the project name and change
	number from the	pathname of the	current	directory.  This
	only works from	within development directories.

	* The aenc, aeca, aerfail, aeifail and aepa commands now
	accept a -Edit command line argument.  See the relevant
	manual pages for more information.

	* The aenpr command now	understands the	-MAJor and -MINOr
	options, allowing the initial version of a project to be
	something other	than 1.0.

	* The aed command now understands the -ANticipate option.
	See aed(1) for more information.

	* It is	now possible to	list all the outstanding changes
	of a project, or of all	projects.  See ael(1) for more
	information.

   Version 1.4
	* Support has been added for systems without the seteuid
	system call, or	those with crippled implementations.

	* Most of the unimplemented command variants have been
	finished.  These include New Change Undo, Develop Begin
	Undo and ReMove	PRoject.  Most notable of the exceptions
	is -ANticipate option for the -CoPy_file and -DIFFerence
	command.

	* The User Guide has been added	to, making it a	little
	more complete.	It still needs more work, sigh.

	* The code to handle automounters has been made	more
	robust.

	* The command substitutions have been vastly improved,
	and are	now documented.

Reference Manual	      Aegis				1