Version Control with Subversion

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Chapter 5: Repository Administration

Hook Scripts

A hook is a program triggered by some repository event, such as the creation of a new

revision or the modification of an unversioned property. Each hook is handed

enough information to tell what that event is, what target(s) it’s operating on, and

the username of the person who triggered the event. Depending on the hook’s out-

put or return status, the hook program may continue the action, stop it, or suspend

it in some way.

The hooks subdirectory is, by default, filled with templates for various repository

hooks:

$ ls repos/hooks/

post-commit.tmpl pre-revprop-change.tmpl

post-revprop-change.tmpl start-commit.tmpl

pre-commit.tmpl

There is one template for each hook that the Subversion repository implements, and

by examining the contents of those template scripts, you can see what triggers each

such script to run and what data is passed to that script. Also present in many of

these templates are examples of how one might use that script, in conjunction with

other Subversion-supplied programs, to perform common useful tasks. To actually

install a working hook, you need only place some executable program or script into

the repos/hooks directory which can be executed as the name (like

start-commit or

post-commit) of the hook.

On Unix platforms, ...