SVN Upgrades & testing (1 Viewer)

[gloomyandy]

Hi,
First a little background...
I use MP all of the time and really like it. I try to help out as much as I can and being a software dev in my real life I'm very much aware of the process and potential problems. I've submitted a number of patches and bug reports for mp over the last few months.

So what is this posting all about. Well I'd like some input on the best way to keep up to date with svns etc. Here is the way I currently work....

I tend to use recent svns all of the time (I understand the risks of doing this). I happy with this and like to try and provide feedback. The way I normally do this is to check the change logs and source forge updates. If there is something that looks interesting then I download the latest svn and take a look. I normally just load this over the top of my current configuration (making a backup as part of the process). If I see a problem of some sort I tend to do the following....
1. Get the latest svn to see if the problem still exists.
2. Try and narrow down the process to create the problem.
3. Once I can do 2. and the problem still exists I will then...
a) Backup my svn channels, and program settings.
b) Rename my MP install dir.
c) Install a fresh copy of the current stable base MP version
d) Update this to the latest svn.
e) If possible reproduce the problem and report it...
f) If the problem needs more of my settings then I re-import the channels from (a).
g) if needed I may add more of my configuration by hand (either using the setup program or by adding config from my saved svn by hand).
h) repeat e, f, g until the problem is reproduced or until I have my complete config available with no bug!
Once I have a system up and working I then continue normal usage until I start the cycle again.

So does the above make sense? Is it reasonably safe to update from one svn to the next? Is there a better way to move from one version to the next and then to revert to a stable build plus svn to test against? What do others do?

All the best

Andy

 

[infinite.loop]

i guess you have not yet found my guides

How to T E S T SVN nightly builds
How to use SVN stable builds (patches)

 

[gloomyandy]

Hi Chris,
Thanks for the reply....
Yes I have seen (and read!) your guides however..
1. They don't seem to be up to date with the new installation mechanism (which allows you to make a backup as part of the svn install process).
2. Although they give you a very clean install. The mechanism of starting from a base with no configuration then installing the svn and then configuring it, is not really so good if you actually want to update reasonably often and actually use the installed svn. The re-configuration can take some time. Also unless you do a backup/restore of your channels and recordings you will not have access to the recorded programs in the newly installed svn (which is a problem if it is this area that you may want to test/report a bug against). Seems to me that step 3 of my process follows your guide for testing reasonably closely, and it is this that I use when reporting a bug.

What I was trying to do was come up with a way of being able to track he nightly builds reasonably often on a working system, but also have a way of ensuring that the quality of problem reports is still good. My experience so far has been that more often than not you can simply install one svn over the top of another without causing too many problems. However if you do this then you must be prepared to every now and again go back to the base and clean things up (which is what I do whenever I have a bug to report). It takes a little more care but it means that I can use/test svns on a day to day basis....

Andy