How to embed Subversion Keywords into iap_xml

[muradkhan]

Hello:

Subversion allows for the inclusion of keywords into any source file checked into source control. These keywords are expanded at checkout and provide meaningful information to the developer checking out files. Examples are:
$URL$ - The URL of the file in the repository
$Rev$ - The revision # checked out
$Author$ - The name of the person who last modified the file
$Date$ - The date of last modification
$Id$ - Composite of all of the above

Since the installation script will sometimes change as a product is developed, we check in the iap_xml file into Subversion, and would like to make use of keywords to keep track of the different revision of the install script.

I'd like to know if this is possible, and how it might be accomplished. Where in my build file may I safely put content that will not be over written by Install Anywhere 2008 Enterprise.

AdThanksVance,
Mike

[pv7721]

Unfortunately, this is exactly the way IA represents its variables, so it might get a little conflicting... but you could try and have a Comment action somewhere in the beginning of your project (the 1st action in the Pre-Install Task), which would translate to a bloc of CDATA in the resulting .iap_xml file, I guess that should do the trick...

[muradkhan]

Vlad:

The first usable section that I think would work for me is:

Splash.png

Any ideas as to how I can stick a comment in here.

Mike

[muradkhan]

Hi:

The very first pre-install action, a comment, ends up on line 3387 in my iap_xml file.

Not very useful.

[pv7721]

Well, I said that the field should be a CDATA, but you should not touch ANY field... if you touch for instance this one, you'll lose the access to the splash file... On the other hand, the way things are saved in the .iap_xml project are not necessary the way you see them in the Advanced Designer.

muradkhan wrote:
Vlad:

The first usable section that I think would work for me is:

Splash.png

Any ideas as to how I can stick a comment in here.

Mike

[muradkhan]

Thanks Vlad:

Appreciate the response. It would appear that there is no way for me to accomplish what I want. Would you agree, and would you also agree that it is a reasonable expectation that such artifacts be versionable (which it is of course is), but modifiable by the version control system.

pv7721 wrote:
Well, I said that the field should be a CDATA, but you should not touch ANY field... if you touch for instance this one, you'll lose the access to the splash file... On the other hand, the way things are saved in the .iap_xml project are not necessary the way you see them in the Advanced Designer.

[pv7721]

Unfortunately, IA doesn't seem to have been designed to be very SCM friendly. To see that, just open up your project in the Advanced Designer, go to the Install task, click to an action then try to close the project. It will prompt you to save even if there isn't a single modification. Save and then do a diff: you'll plenty of stuff that IA artificially regenerated so even for a small modification you've got plenty of other polluting ones (so looking at an IA diff is always a nightmare).

[muradkhan]

Thanks Vlad.