[alf-dev] Re: Subversion Integration (was: Eclipse ALF Planning meeting

["Mark Phippard" <markp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tim Buss wrote:

> That would be most welcome.  I'm not sure whether there is time to add
> Subversion to the POC before EclipseCon but I'd like to discuss that
> with you.  Probably best it we talked directly.  Send me a email so
> we can set up a time to talk.

I have sent you an email with my phone number.

> Just for background, the POC runs on Windows 2003 server. As to web
> service implementation, a Tomcat/Axis 1  based web service is
> prefered simply because we already know how to install and run that.
> We are using various versions of Tomcat and Axis.  However, I would
> suggest using Apache Tomcat 5.0.28,  Apache Axis 1.1 and Sun jdk
> 1.4.2_07.

None of that should pose a problem.  I have rewritten the web service
to be something real and I did it using WTP 1.0.1 and targeted that
environment.

> Since the POC is not concerend with the Vocabulary issues so much, it
> could be that the WSDL you already developed can be be re-used.  Axis
> has a tool that will generate a service from a WSDL so this may be
> quite easy to do.  Something to discuss in any case.

I basically created a Java-bean type class that has the service methods
and takes care of the details.  I then used the wizard to generate WSDL
an a Web Service from this class.  I tested it using the Web Services
Explorer.  The only thing I had trouble with is that I wanted to return
a class that had a boolean and a String and I cannot make that work.
So for now, they all just return strings.

It would be easy to just put another layer in front of the class I
wrote if you wanted to stick an ALF-specfic layer in front of it.  We
can work out those details on the phone.  I can just zip up my WTP
project and send it to you or post it for download.

My current service exposes the following options:

checkoutProject
exportProject
importProject
updateProject
createTag
commitChanges

Adding more is simple but I assume this is more than enough for now.
The only additional pieces I can see needing for a true ALF scenario
would be to add some Subversion hook-scripts so that, for example, when
a Subversion commit is performed, Subversion proactively notifies a
service about the event.  An easy solution might be to use the provided
Subversion scripts for sending emails and then have a process that
receives these emails and does something.  But I could also work on a
hook if needed.

Mark