HOOD Group auf der SubConf 2008

Title of the presentation: Interfacing Subversion with third party tools

Category: User Report

Level: Beginner

Date and Time: Wednesday, 15th October 2008, 05:05 p.m. - 05:50 p.m. 

Abstract: Subversion is a powerful and widespread version and configuration management tool. To make effective use of such tools, especially larger companies have to incorporate them into their development processes and their tool landscape. Therefore actions in Subversion have to be defined as process steps, and information or content available in Subversion has to be accessible from outside.

Although Subversion does offer general interfaces. These interfaces do not provide access for any specific tool. We will give an insight in how these interfaces can be exploited to transport information into a third party tool. Furthermore this presentation will give an insight into the made experiences while building an interface between Subversion and a larger change management and reporting tool for a customer in the aerospace industry. In our solution we used a bi-directional approach allowing us to send HTTP messages containing meta information supplied by Subversion to a third party tool, as well as receive XML-structured command messages in order to execute a specific command in Subversion.

Our conclusion is that the Subversion standard interfaces suffice to achieve integration between Subversion and other third party tools. Hook scripts and command line tools provide all necessary information and command access needed. By combining those interfaces with the capability of HTTP messages, solutions feasible even for larger companies can be created.

Alexander Merten is active for the HOOD Group as a consultant in requirements engineering & management, as well as in change, version and configuration management. As a member of the HOOD software division he also provides tool analysis and tool customization. Mr. Merten has been actively involved in projects in the automotive and aerospace sector, where he has supported the introduction of quality assurance concepts and the implementation of project plans. Finally Mr. Merten has been active in the field of process improvement and the introduction of CMMI to a department in an automotive research facility.