Topics of this section describes Collaborator integration with Subversion.

Overview

The Collaborator server can upload files from committed revisions directly from your Subversion server to a review, without users needing to install any client programs. See Subversion Server Integration.

Subversion server-side hooks can ensure code is reviewed or automatically create reviews.

Collaborator's GUI Client can upload local changes to files in a Working Copy, or upload files in Revisions. The GUI Client can also upload arbitrary Subversion diffs, or the difference between two Revisions, branches/tags, or dates. See Integrating Through Collaborator.

Collaborator's Command-Line Client can upload local changes to files in a Working Copy, or upload the files in committed Revisions. The Command-Line Client can also upload arbitrary Subversion diffs. See Integrating Through Command-Line Client.

Collaborator's Eclipse Plug-in integrates with the Subclipse and Subversive plug-ins, so you can upload locally modified files or the files in Revisions.

Supported Subversion Versions

Collaborator's Command-Line and GUI clients use the Subversion command-line client (svn) to communicate with the Subversion server.

Collaborator's Command-Line and GUI clients support Subversion 1.4.x - 1.14.2. For versions 1.3.x and earlier only the ccollab addsvndiffs command is supported.

The TortoiseSVN client is not supported, unless it is installed along with the "command line client tools" option.

Since Collaborator clients work through the Subversion command-line client that is already present on your computer, Collaborator supports all protocols, authentications, proxies, and other client configuration options that you are currently using.

Collaborator's Eclipse Plug-in integrates with the Subclipse and Subversive Eclipse plug-ins and supports the following versions of these plug-ins:

Support for Directory-Level Changes

Collaborator partially supports Subversion's concept of directories (not just files) being altered.

All the files in directories in question will be scanned, uploaded and represented properly in the Collaborator's GUI. The directories themselves will not be shown, or even in the file list confirmation screen presented by the command-line client.

This works correctly even in cases, when you move a parent directory and change, add or delete a file in that directory. In the review, you will get the correct content for the file, but the directory itself will not be listed.

Note this limitation affects "commit" functionality. If a directory and a file in it were included in a review and then modified, the Collaborator client will not be able to commit them automatically. The workaround is to commit the changes manually and then "dismiss" the commit Action Item.

Support for svn+ssh

The Collaborator clients support running Subversion over SSH (the svn+ssh:// protocol). On some systems, especially those under Unix, Mac OS X or Cygwin/Windows, this will probably work correctly out-of-the-box.

If your SSH connection displays a banner, this will interfere with the client being able to parse the Subversion output correctly. We would recommend suppressing banner output by adding the "-q" option to your SSH executable --

svn_ssh = ssh -q

-- or by creating a local SSH configuration file and adding the following line to it:

LogLevel QUIET

On some Windows computers, you might have to configure Subversion to default to your SSH client. To do this:

ssh = "C:\\Program Files\\PuTTY\\Plink.exe" -l <your username>

Note: It is important to use double slashes.

Support for Symlinks

Collaborator partially supports Subversion's ability to version symlinks. If a committed revision contains a symlink, and you attached this revision to a review, Collaborator will be able to display the symlink contents correctly. However, if a symlink was added to a review before you commit the changes to Subversion, Collaborator displays an incorrect content for the symlink (the symlink will be traversed).

Changes to Properties

Collaborator does not support reviews of the changes made to Subversion properties.

Technical Details and Limitations

Review Screen, Diff Viewer, Eclipse Plug-in and Visual Studio Extension display atomic changelists (revisions in terms of Subversion) in chronological order (from older to newer), regardless the order in which they have been uploaded to review.

Collaborator does not guarantee that Diff Viewer will display correct comparison results for the following cases: