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GNU arch

In Computing, GNU arch is a revision control system, similar in purpose to tools such as Concurrent Versions System, SCCS, and Subversion (software). It is used to keep track of the changes made to a source tree and to help programmers combine and otherwise manipulate changes made by multiple people or at different times.

=Features=

GNU arch uses a slightly different paradigm from most versioning systems, in that each revision is uniquely globally identifiable. This results in a very scalability system that allows easy merging and applying of changes from completely disparate sources.

GNU arch is decentralized, removing the need for a central server for which developers have to be authorized in order to contribute. Instead, GNU arch is designed so that a full read-only copy of a project is made accessible by a head developer via HTTP, FTP, or SFTP, and each contributor is encouraged to retrieve a copy of the project, make modifications, then publish their changeset to allow the head developer to manually merge said changeset into the official project that s later refreshed on the read-only copy.

To simulate the behavior of centralized revision control systems, the head developer could allow shell access (SSH) or write access (FTP, WebDAV) to a server, allowing authorized users to commit to a central server.

GNU arch has several other features:

  • Atomic commits: Commits are all-or-nothing. The tree must be in proper condition before the commit begins, and commits are not visible to the world until complete. If the commit is interrupted before this, it remains invisible and must be rolled back before the next commit. This avoids corruption of the archive and other users checked-out copies.
  • Changeset oriented: Instead of tracking individual files, GNU arch tracks changesets, which may span multiple files. Each changeset is essentially a snapshot of the tree, with no files out of date relative to each other. Authors are encouraged to use one commit per feature or bugfix.
  • Easy branching: Branching is efficient and can span archives. A branch (or tag ) simply declares the ancestor revision, and development continues from there.
  • Advanced merging: Due to the permanent record of all ancestors and merged revisions, merging can take into account which branch contains which patch, and can do three-way merging based on a shared ancestor revision.
  • client), these hashes can also optionally be signed, preventing unauthorized modification if the archive is compromised.
  • Renaming: All files and directories can be easily renamed. These are tracked by a unique ID rather than by name, so history is preserved, and patches to files are properly merged even if filenames differ across branches.
  • Metadata tracking: The permissions of all files are tracked. Symbolic links are supported and are tracked the same way as files and directories.

    • =History and maintainership=

    The primary author and maintainer of arch was Tom Lord. The command used to manipulate Arch repositories is tla, an acronym for Tom Lord s Arch . Lord started arch as a collection of shell scripts to provide an alternative to CVS. In 2003, arch became part of the GNU project.

    The Arch project has revision control systems.

    On had accepted his offer to be the maintainer of GNU arch. [http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnu-arch-users/2005-10/msg00246.html]

    =Criticism=

    Perhaps the most common criticism of arch is that it is difficult to learn, even for users who have experience with other Software configuration management systems. In particular, arch has a large number of commands, which can be intimidating for new users.

    Some also criticize arch for using very unusual file naming conventions[http://wiki.gnuarch.org/FunkyFileNames], which can create difficulties for using arch in scripts, some Operating system shells, and in porting arch to non-Unix operating systems. In addition to a perceived lack of portability, at present arch has a reputation of not scaling well to large trees.

    Proponents of arch point out that the project is still maturing, and that any serious problems will likely be addressed as work continues.

    The not yet released version 2.0 proposed to get rid of the strange filenames and reduce the command set to 10 commands. [http://seyza.com/] The 2.0 release is currently stalled given Tom Lord s resignation as maintainer.

    = External links =

  • [http://www.gnu.org/software/gnu-arch/ The GNU Arch homepage]
  • [http://wiki.gnuarch.org The arch wiki]
  • [http://regexps.srparish.net/tutorial-tla/arch.html An extensive tutorial on arch]
  • [http://lwn.net/Articles/125792/ LWN.net article on arch]
  • [http://farbror.acc.umu.se/pub/test/maswan/dc5video.debian.net/2005-07-15/distributed_rev_control-by_Mark_Shuttleworth.mpeg Arch Distributed Revision Control] by Mark Shuttleworth
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