RBTools 0.7.10 is now out

Today’s release of RBTools 0.7.10 some important compatibility fixes for macOS, Git, Subversion, Team Foundation Server, ClearCase.

macOS and Browser Windows

macOS users who have upgraded to recent releases of Sierra lost the ability to run rbt post --open (to open the posted review request in a browser window) due to a Python/AppleScript bug. This is Python bug #30392, for those who are interested.

We’ve worked around this. Your default browser will work once again. Thanks to those who pointed this out!

There’s also a whole new macOS installer coming that should actually work on all setups. We’ll have this on the Downloads page once it gets a little more testing.

Git and Git-SVN

Git-SVN users should no longer encounter crashes when trying to post changes for review. That was pretty disruptive.

Git repositories with submodules containing pending changes no longer cause warnings about dirty repositories when posting changes. They’re not included anyway, and just added to the confusion.

Crazy Subversion Diffs

If you had a line of code being deleted that happened to look like a diff header (say, --- XX (YY)), it could cause some code we have for fixing up diffs to get very confused. That, unfortunately, could lead to lines being excluded from the diff, breaking when you try viewing it in the diff viewer.

We’ve rewritten this code to be very careful about these lines. It won’t get confused again.

Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio 2017

Team Foundation Server users who have upgraded to Visual Studio 2017 can once again post changes. TFS has had a nasty habit of changing their file formats, APIs, and command line options, but after much tearing out of the hair, we’ve restored compatibility.

All versions from Visual Studio 2011 onward should work just fine, so no need to upgrade to 2017 just to use this release.

We’ve also fixed a regression when using the Team Explorer Everywhere adapter.

ClearCase and Cross-Platform VOB Lookups

ClearCase users can now name their repositories in Review Board based on a component of a VOB path, instead of naming it based on the entire VOB path. This helps with the differences in how ClearCase represents VOB paths on different platforms. For instance, a VOB path of /vobs/MyVOB or C:\vobs\MyVOB will now match a repository name of MyVOB.

There are also some performance improvements for looking up VOBs.

And Other Such Things

There are improvements to the Python API, such as not prematurely exiting the process, plus compatibility fixes for Review Board 3.0. We’ve also added a new config option to disable certain warnings in RBTools, which would be especially useful for repository hook scripts.

For the complete list of changes, see the release notes.

To upgrade RBTools, visit the downloads page.

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RBTools 0.7.7 is released!

We’ve just put out an all-new release of RBTools. Version 0.7.7 features compatibility fixes for various types of repositories, better support for TFS, and some new features to help with common usage and automation.

You can see the release notes for the full list of changes. We’ll go over the highlights here.

Compatibility/bug fixes

In this release, we’ve aimed to fix a handful of compatibility problems that have been reported to us. Thanks to all the contributors who sent patches!

  • RBTools is once again compatible with Mercurial 2.x. This regressed in 0.7.6.
  • Some error displays are fixed when using the version of Python shipped with macOS 10.11.
  • Perforce gained the ability to post against null client roots, and fixed posting ranges of submitted changelists.
  • Repository lookups utilizing mirror paths or Subversion UUIDs now work once again. These regressed in 0.7.6.
  • rbt post for Git now supports --exclude-patterns when using git-svn or git-p4.
  • rbt land no longer crashes if it can’t determine the approval state on a review request.

Improved Team Foundation Server support

The old TFS support was a bit slow, due to the way we had to interact with the Team Foundation Server command line tools. It also presented compatibility problems, as different versions of Visual Studio shipped different, incompatible versions of these tools.

We’ve now introduced new support that doesn’t depend on their tools and is optimized for our use cases. This means better compatibility everywhere, faster posting, and new features.

To start with, we’re adding the ability to post shelved changesets! You can do this by simply running:

rbt post <shelveset-name>

To begin using RBTools 0.7.7 with TFS, you will need to install our new TFS adapter by typing:

rbt install tfs

New features

We’ve added the ability to specify a destination tracking branch for rbt land. To choose something other than the default (say, origin/master on Git), you can now specify:

rbt land --tracking-branch <branch-name>

If you find yourself needing to pass --svn-prompt-password all the time for your Subversion setup, you can set SVN_PROMPT_PASSWORD in your project’s or user’s .reviewboardrc instead. Just set this and you’ll never have to type it again:

SVN_PROMPT_PASSWORD = True

What’s coming next

We’re working toward a RBTools 1.0 release, which will feature enhanced support for Mercurial, new automation commands for use in the upcoming Review Board 3.0, easier setup and installation, and better display of progress when posting changes.

We’re also hard at work on a rewrite of our documentation, with the aim of providing more practical, detailed setup and usage guides for RBTools. These will begin to land over the next month.

If you have any bug reports or feature requests for either RBTools or the documentation, we’d love to hear them! You can file a bug or reach out to us on our reviewboard-dev discussion list.

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RBTools 0.7.6 is released!

Today’s all-new release of RBTools 0.7.6 comes with over a dozen improvements, from Mercurial and Perforce fixes to new Team Foundation Server capabilities to automation enhancements.

We’ve fixed some character set compatibility bugs with Team Foundation Server. There’s also new support for posting branched/copied files for review (this requires some changes we’ll be bringing to RBCommons in a big update this quarter), excluding files using --exclude, and specifying a custom path to tf.exe.

Perforce users should see more stability in edge cases, like posting deleted symbolic links for review or when dealing with Unicode mismatches between review requests and changesets.

Mercurial users can now safely use relative, negative, or short revisions when specifying commits to post for review.

We’ve improved RBTools’s behavior when running in a non-interactive console, allowed rbt api-get to be used outside of a source tree, and made it easier to work with paginated responses in the Python API.

Performance has been improved when looking up repositories on ClearCase and Subversion.

These are just some of the improvements made in RBTools 0.7.6. For the complete list, see the release notes.

To upgrade RBTools, visit the downloads page.

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RBTools 0.7.5 is here!

RBTools 0.7.5 is now out and ready to install.

This is largely a bug fix release, focusing in part on improved compatibility with Windows, Git, Subversion, Mercurial, Perforce, and Team Foundation Server.

On Windows, RBTools will now first look in %HOME% to find any custom .reviewboardrc files, instead of only looking in the Application Data directory, which will be quite helpful with many system configurations. There are also fixes for using Mercurial on Windows.

Non-Git user? You’ve probably seen that annoying but harmless command not found: git error when posting a change. That’s gone now!

For Perforce users, posting submitted changes or files outside of the client view now work. This had regressed in an earlier release, but you should be in good shape now.

Subversion has seen some more Unicode fixes, plus fixes for rbt post --svn-show-copies-as-adds.

Along with all this, we’ve added a new feature for setting a custom search path for .reviewboardrc. You can set your $RBTOOLS_CONFIG_PATH to a list of paths to search, allowing you to make your version in $HOME take precedence over what’s in your repository, and allowing you to work with centralized collections of aliases in your organization.

See the release notes for the complete list of changes.

One more thing: We’ve simplified installation for those of you using pip to install. Our builds are now directly hosted on PyPI, meaning all you now need to do to upgrade is run pip install -U RBTools.

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RBTools 0.7.3 is out, with Unicode fixes and more

Have you been plagued by Unicode errors when posting changes? Subversion 1.7.x compatibility problems? SSL errors with self-signed certs on Python 2.7.9+? Well then, today’s release of RBTools 0.7.3 is for you! … and, well, everyone, really. There’s a lot in here you’re going to want.

First off, the Unicode fixes. We had some Unicode-related breakages in past releases, which have been almost entirely eliminated in this release. If you’ve hit any such error before, give 0.7.3 a try.

There are lots of compatibility and behavioral improvements for Bazaar, ClearCase, CVS, Subversion, Perforce, Plastic, and TFS. Patching, for instance, works a lot more reliably across the board. Subversion 1.7.x and lower should start working again as well.

It’s not all bug fixes, though. We have some new features and command line options:

  • rbt post --stamp will auto-stamp commits with the review request URL.
  • rbt patch -R can be used to revert a patch from a review request.
  • rbt land and rbt stamp now work with Perforce.
  • Perforce supports changesets with imported files from remote depots.
  • API caching behavior and cookie storage can now be disabled/changed for any command. Useful for hooks and other scripts.
  • SSL certificate verification can be disabled on Python 2.7.9+ by using --disable-ssl-verification.

Those are the highlights! For the complete list of changes, see the release notes.

But wait, we have a couple more announcements concerning our releases:

Better installation through pip and Wheels

We’re now officially releasing Python Wheel packages for RBTools, supporting the latest versions of pip. To install RBTools, simply type:

$ pip install --allow-all-external RBTools

(In the future, we’re hoping to eliminate the need for --allow-all-external.)

Signed releases

As of this release, we’re now signing all builds with our official PGP key. Using gpg, you can verify a build was produced by us by importing our public key and then verifying it against the .asc signature files from our downloads.

For example, to verify RBTools-0.7.3.exe was produced by us, download it along with RBTools-0.7.3.exe.asc and run:

$ gpg2 --recv-key 4ED1F993
$ gpg2 --verify RBTools-0.7.3.exe.asc

(Note that if it complains about the key not being certified with a trusted signature, it’s just because you haven’t signed our key. If you see that message, and the primary key fingerprint is 09D5 06DA BB62 A09E 891D A9F3 2852 91B3 4ED1 F993, it’s good!)

We’ll have documentation covering this in more detail soon.

Thanks everyone, and as always, feel free to reach out with any questions.

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RBTools 0.7.2 is here!

It’s been just over a month since RBTools 0.7.1 arrived at stores near you (or probably not). That’s a whole month spent not upgrading RBTools, and we can’t have that. Plus, there were some good bug fixes and new commands we thought we’d send your way. So let’s not waste any more time. Here’s what’s in today’s release of RBTools 0.7.2.

We’ve fixed some issues working with Bitbucket/Beanstalk/Unfuddle. We’ve heard reports from users that posting changes against their Git repositories hosted on these services that just resulted in failure, so we’ve gone ahead and fixed that all up.

There are also two new RBTools commands for you to play with:

  • rbt login will log into RBCommons and store the cookie. rbt post and other commands will still do that, but it’s sometimes handy to have new users log in once in order to ensure they’re all set up properly.
  • rbt logout will log you out of your API session on RBCommons, and delete the cookie.

For the full list of changes, see our release notes.

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RBTools 0.7.1 is released

Today’s release of RBTools 0.7.1 fixes up several issues found in this month’s big 0.7 release, and helps to increase performance when posting changes for review. There are also compatibility fixes for Windows, and improvements to the new Windows installer.

Some of the highlights include:

  • Unicode compatibility fixes when running on Windows.
  • CVS/Subversion diffs are once again generated from the current directory and not the root of the checkout.
  • Several fixes for the Windows Installer.
  • Support for invoking RBTools in a Bash shell on Windows.
  • Fewer API requests are needed to post changes for review.

For the full list of changes, see the release notes.

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An effective RBTools workflow for Git

Update: We’ve documented this workflow in the RBTools documentation. The following still applies, but for more details and tips, see the docs.

One of the beautiful things about Git is that you have so many ways of making it work for you. This is also one of the frightening things about Git, particularly if you’re just starting out. There’s loads of documentation and blog posts covering all the ways you can use Git to manage your code or shoot yourself in the foot.

A question we’re often asked is how Git is supposed to be used with Review Board or RBCommons.

“How should I post changes,” they ask. “How should I land them?”

“Well,” we say, “that’s up to you… but here’s how we do it.”

One branch per review request

Branches in Git are pretty great. They’re light-weight, and you can really choose when and how to use them.

What we like to do is have one branch for every review request we’re still working with. Maybe they’re branching off of master, or maybe off of another change you have up for review… doesn’t matter.

Create the branch, and create as many commits on it as you want. You’re going to post these all for review under one review request. For our example, we’ll use 2 commits.

$ git checkout -b my-branch-1 master
$ vim foo.py
$ git commit -a
$ vim bar.py
$ git commit -a

Now let’s create another branch off of that, and make one commit here. This will be for your second review request.

$ git checkout -b my-branch-2
$ vim foo.py
$ git commit -a

Your tree now looks like this:

o [my-branch-2]
|
o [my-branch-1]
|
o
|
o [master] [origin/master]
|

Great, let’s post!

We’ll post that first change for review (my-branch-1). Since it’s based off of origin/master, this will be easy (since by default, that’s what’s diffed against). We just post like so:

$ git checkout my-branch-1
$ rbt post
Review request #1001 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/diff/

Excellent. If you go to that first URL, you’ll see your summary and description filled in from your commit messages. You can edit these to your liking.

If your server has any default reviewers set up, they’ll be assigned. You might also want to fill in some bug, add some testing information. Do whatever you want to do there and publish the review request.

Now sit back and relax and… oh wait, you have a second change ready for review! Thanks to Git and RBTools, you don’t have to wait on that. Let’s post that one too.

$ rbt post my-branch-1..my-branch-2
Review request #1002 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/diff/

What you’re doing here is posting all the commits on my-branch-2 that were made since my-branch-1. No need to push my-branch-1 first, or really worry about it in any way.

You’ll probably want to set the Depends On field to point to your other review request, as a hint to any reviewers deciding which to review first.

Oh, here’s some short-hand. If you’re already on my-branch-2, you can make use of HEAD instead of spelling out my-branch-2. In this case, this branch only has one commit, so you could also leave out my-branch1... All of these are therefore equivalent:

$ rbt post HEAD
$ rbt post my-branch-1..HEAD
$ rbt post my-branch-1..my-branch-2

This is probably familiar to you if you’re used to Git. You can use any Git SHA/tag/branch/revision range you want when calling rbt post.

Note: If you’re posting against a remote branch other than origin/master, you’ll need to either pass --tracking-branch=myremote/mybranch on any RBTools command, or set TRACKING_BRANCH = "myremote/mybranch" in .reviewboardrc. The remote must match the configured repository on Review Board.

Need to make some changes? -u to the rescue!

So someone found a flaw in your otherwise perfect code. Happens to the best of us. In both review requests, you say? Okay, we’ll let that slide for now.

Let’s update the first change. Lots of options here. You can make a new commit with the fixes, or you can amend the commit.

If it’s just a fix made in a previously un-pushed commit, we like to amend. Your choice.

$ git checkout my-branch-1
$ vim bar.py
$ git commit -a --amend
$ rbt post -u
Review request #1001 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/diff/

Now on to the second. We’ll probably want the latest from my-branch-1 as well, so we can rebase or merge. We like to rebase when this stuff is still in flux and not yet pushed, and we like to merge when the history starts to matter (that is, when the code is in some kind of decent, landable shape).

Again, your call.

$ git checkout my-branch-2
$ git rebase my-branch-1
$ vim foo.py
$ git commit -a --amend
$ rbt post -u HEAD
Review request #1002 posted.

https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/
https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1002/diff/

The -u flag updates an existing review request that matches your commit message. If you’ve modified the summary or description in any way, it may prompt you for any review requests that mostly match. Just say yes or no.

Great, publish those changes. Eventually the code will be perfect.

Got your “Ship It!”? Time to land!

RBTools 0.7 and higher comes with a nifty little command, rbt land. This command takes a branch, verifies that it’s been reviewed, and lands the changes.

Let’s land both of your branches, one after the other.

$ git checkout master
$ rbt land --dest=master --push my-branch-1
$ rbt land --dest=master --push my-branch-2

This will verify that my-branch-1 is approved (at least one “Ship It!” and no open issues). It will then merge my-branch-1 into master, push it, and delete the old branch. Then it’ll verify, merge, push, and delete my-branch-2.

Each branch you land will be merged into master, with a merge commit containing the summary, description, bug numbers, and review request URL. If you want to instead squash each branch into a single commit on master, you can use --squash.

You can use --dry-run to see what will happen without actually changing your tree. Useful when you first start off.

You can also edit the commit message using --edit, or leave out --push if you don’t want to push the branch, or add --no-delete-branch if you don’t want to delete the branches. You can also set the default branch to land into. The documentation goes into all the options that are available.

Closing out landed review requests

We like to set up our review requests to auto-close when pushing commits. This is designed to work with rbt land.

When you land a change, the commit message will contain a line saying something like:

Reviewed at https://reviewboard.example.com/r/1001/

The auto-close hooks will see that and automatically close your review request, so you don’t have to.

And that’s how we do it.

There’s really a lot of options here. Some people push changes and then use the web UI to post them for review. Some people generate their own diffs and upload them. Some like to merge their own branches.

That’s all a lot of work, though. Our method give us:

  • Nice code organization, since every review request has its own dedicated branch.
  • Fast posting and updating of review requests.
  • Less mess. No extra branches sticking around, and review requests are automatically closed.
  • Confidence that every landed change has been approved. No slip-ups with pushing the wrong branch.

Give it a try!

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