CVS web interface

[davinci]

Is there some way to use perl to issue cvs command from a web based interface? I've tried using exec(). system(), and ``. The script works fine from the command line, but it doesn't actually execute from a web call. Any advice??

[tiny]

I actually wrote a nifty web-based code review tool that is built around CVS. (I might release it someday if my company will allow it :) Here is how I did the CVS part of it. This code uses IPC to talk to CVS and retrieves a specific version number out of CVS and runs it through enscript to color-code it. The enscript part is just for fun :)

my $cobin = "/usr/local/bin/co";
my $enscript = "/usr/local/bin/enscript";
my $cvs_repos = "/path/to/cvs/repository";
my $rev = "1.1"
my $file = "script.pl";

open(CVS, "$cobin -r$rev -p $cvs_repos/$file 2>&1 |");
@code = <CVS>;

# write it to a temp file so enscript can use it
open(TMPCVS, ">/tmp/tmpcvs.$$");
foreach (@code) { print TMPCVS $_; }
close(CVS, TMPCVS);

# the 2>/dev/null drops all stderr text, which is usually "output left
+ in -". This would have ended up either in the code
# or the log file.
open(ENSCRIPT, "$enscript --pretty-print=perl -G --language=html --col
+or -p- /tmp/tmpcvs.$$ 2>/dev/null |");
my @source = <ENSCRIPT>;
close(ENSCRIPT);

unlink("/tmp/tmpcvs.$$");

Probably a little bit more there than what you needed, but hopefully that can help answer your question. You might also want to check out the Python script ViewCVS. I fumbled my way through this in order to figure out how to use the 'co' command.

[KM]

Do you get errors (what does $! say?). May be a permission problem with the web user vs. you (from the command line). I haven't used these myself, but these modules may be of use. But, I would be interested in the error messages (if any) from your system(), etc... attempts.

Cheers,
KM

[davinci]

I have already though about the user problem. Is there a way to set the 'User' of the script from within PERL?

[KM]

Look here for a possible solution to your problem.

Cheers,
KM

[Anonymous Monk]

things done via the web are done as user nobody im sure you know... so maybe give user nobody permissions to read/write in your cvs writers file...might help things along...worth a shot.. of course if it worked it would be opening a large door...