This document discusses basics of branching, tagging and packaging for product release management with SVN. It covers why SVN is used, environmental considerations, branching strategies including the unstable trunk strategy, tagging, versioning, packaging, and merging in Subversion. Branching allows independent lines of development while maintaining a shared history. Tagging creates snapshots for versions. Packaging gathers artifacts like source code and database scripts into repeatable releases. Merging integrates changes between branches.

1. Basics of branching, tagging and packaging
for product release management with SVN
Ted Steinmann
APPLICATION
VERSIONING

2. About Me
 Building & Deploying CF Web apps for 4 years
 ImageTrend, Inc. Lead Developer
 Employee 3+ years
 cf.Objective() attendee 3 years running
 MAX 2008 (San Francisco) Attendee
 Avid hiker, snowboarder & single-track rider

3. Experience
 Involved, at some point, in most stages of the
ColdFusion based development, design,
implementation & support of large scale enterprise
applications for ImageTrend’s Emergency Data
Systems solutions
 EMS, Fire, Trauma, Emergency Preparedness,
Licensing
 Strong proponent of SVN, versioning and iterative
release processes using the unstable branching
strategy who has been involved with company
wide implementation throughout various projects.

4. Summary
 Why SVN?
 Environmental
Considerations
 Branching
 Strategies
 Branching
 Tagging
 Versioning
 Packaging
 Publishing

5. Why SVN?
 Open source/free
 Widely used & supported
 Many Eclipse plugins
 Supports
 Remote disconnected development
 Continuous/Synchronous development
 Distributed Development
 Extendable integrations
 Properties such as bug tracking id
 Atomic commits
 Project wide undue button

6. Environmental Considerations
 Development
 Alpha
 Beta
 Staging
 Production
 Source control server
 SVN
 Visual SVN
 Source control client
 Tortoise SVN
 Build Script
 Automated deployment
Application
Environments
Supporting Environments &
considerations

7. Environmental Considerations
 Developers copy
 Checkout – Trunk
 Alpha
 Checkout – Trunk
 Auto update – post-commit-hook
 Beta
 Checkout – Release Branch or Trunk (switch)
 Staging or production
 Export from tagged release

8. Alpha Auto Update
 DEMO
 Code
 post-commit-hook.bat
 Environments
 http://tsteinmann.samples/svn/project1/trunk/src/
 http://tsteinmann.samples/svn/alpha/project1/

9. Branching
 Enables independent lines of development
 Share a common history with the mainline/trunk
 New feature development, release
prep/management
 Isolated development environments
 Copy of another branch/trunk at a point in time

10. Branching Strategies
 The Unstable Trunk
 Serial Releases
 The Stable Trunk
 Parallel Releases
Branching strategies can be
intermingled, but choosing one and
sticking with it creates transparency,
simplicity, & consistency.
Strategies are suggested usage or best
practices but not enforced by
subversion.
 The Agile Branching Strategy
 Delayed definition
 Features that may never
make it into the product
All strategies support Agile
development practices, agile
branching supports more
reactive undefined chaotic
development and places
more time & effort on
branching & merging than
development.

11. Unstable Trunk Strategy
 Trunk
 Main line development of a product
 On going development for next release
 Feature branch
 Safe place for development of features in isolation
 Development delivered later, NOT for next release
 Copy of branch (or Trunk) at a point in time
 Release Branch
 Stable releasable/feature complete code set
 created to prepare for release
 Bug/defect fixes development performed or merged here
 Tags are created from here
• Simplest most
usable
• Payload
development
• Serial development

12. Unstable Trunk Diagram

13. Tagging
 Snap shot of a repository at a point in time
 Commonly a version number
 REL-1.0
 A tag is effectively the same thing as a branch
 Best practices suggest NEVER committing to a
tag
 Tortoise will warn you but not prevent
 You can tag a branch & branch a tag
 It’s easier to just create a branch from a branch
(or the trunk) at a revision that lines corresponds
to a tag.

14. Versioning
 Wikipedia:
 Software versioning is the process of assigning
either unique version names or unique version
numbers to unique states of computer software.
 Generally numeric, and increasing order
 Every subsequent version contains all fixes &
enhancements from previous versions
 Versioning needs to make sense for
developers, marketing & existing customers

15. Packaging
 Gathering artifacts that make up a product
 Source Code
 Store version info in source code
 Database scripts
 Store version info in database
Write scripts to be re-runnable
 Repeatable process
 Automated/Scripted build & delivery

16. Packaging (continued)
 ANT
 Another Neat Tool
 Built into Eclipse
 svn.exe
 command line utility
 CollabNet (one of many)
 SVNKit
 Java Library
 Database script compilation or versioning

17. Packaging (continued)
 Steps
1. Compile database scripts
2. Export code from a tag
3. Strip out any un-necessary config or logs
4. Deliver package

18. Packaging
 DEMO
 package.bat
 build.xml

19. Merging
 Copy differences from between 2 trees, and
applying to a working copy for commit
 Feature Branch
 Feature complete
 Expected in next release
 Release Branch
 Merge when tagged
 Apply hot fixes to on going dev in Trunk

20. Merging (continued)
 Range of revisions
 Reintegrate Branch
 Merge two different trees
 DEMO – Time Permitting

21. Pointers
 Merge as often as possible
 The longer a branch exists in isolation the more
difficult the merge
 KISS
 Do EVERYTHING from a working copy
 If you find yourself doing the same thing over
and over… script it… most of us are
developers.

22. Questions?

23. Resources
 Branching Strategy Questioned (Bob w/Collabnet)
 http://blogs.open.collab.net/svn/2007/11/branching-strat.html
 Pragmatic version control using subversion
 http://www.pragprog.com/titles/svn2/pragmatic-version-control-using-subversion
 Tortoise SVN Docs
 http://tortoisesvn.net/docs/release/TortoiseSVN_en/index.html
 Wikipedia (Software Versioning)
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_versioning
 Collabnet SVN (download)
 http://www.open.collab.net/downloads/subversion/
 Eclipse – ANT & External tools tutorial
 http://help.eclipse.org/ganymede/topic/org.eclipse.platform.doc.user/gettingStarted/qs-
80_ant.htm
 SVNKit (Java Library Integration – Jared Rypka-Hauer)
 http://www.alagad.com/blog/post.cfm/svnkit-coldfusion-and-you--very-cool-java-cf-stuff