[Distutils] [issue79] SVN Entries parsing should use local svn command for implementation

[Jason R. Coombs]

New submission from Jason R. Coombs <jaraco at jaraco.com>:

Per issue #64, there is a need for a more future-resistant SVN entries parsing
mechanism for setuptools.  The existing implementation is brittle and depends on
file formats which are internal to the SVN implementation.  @dw has proposed
setuptools use 'svn info --xml' to retrieve entry information.

I propose a patch must support the following:
1) Support fallback to native pure-python parsing if command is not found or
cannot be executed.
2) Use subprocess (requires Python 2.4) for broad platform support (including
Jython).
3) The current implementation appears to gather more detail from the entries
file than is exposed by 'svn info --xml'.  Ensure that the command-based
implementation provides the same logical result.
4) The implementation should have a well-defined and configurable means to
locate the SVN client. If there is no 'svn' command in the search path, there
should be an alternative means for setuptools to locate the command (such as one
or more of: a registry entry, environment variable, package manager callback, etc.).

Some features that may also be considered.
1) Support linking to the TortoiseSVN DLL for Windows users (use ctypes to avoid
compile-time dependencies).
2) Support shelling to a Java VM to support users of Subclipse.

Comments and suggestions are appreciated.  After there is a consensus, I'm
willing to draft an implementation.

----------
messages: 320
nosy: dw, jaraco
priority: feature
status: unread
title: SVN Entries parsing should use local svn command for implementation

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Setuptools tracker <setuptools at bugs.python.org>
<http://bugs.python.org/setuptools/issue79>
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