[GRASS-user] Re: setting up GRASS svn

[Shane Litherland]

Hi Markus,

Thanks for confirming why my initial fumbling didn't appear
successful :-)

Note that my final outcome was a fresh setup so the hurdles I had along
the way aren't residing in my current GRASS now.

couple of other notes in context below:

On Sat, 2012-01-21 at 21:24 +0100, Markus Neteler wrote:
> On Sat, Jan 21, 2012 at 5:44 AM, Shane Litherland
> <litherland-farm at bigpond.com> wrote:
> > Hi Markus and mailing list;
> >
> > I tackled the svn setup today. after several hrs of web browsing,
> > uninstalling old versions, and trying a few approaches to svn commands,
> > I think I have succeeded. the 'info' under GRASS "HELP>ABOUT GRASS GIS"
> > now shows I have 'GRASS GIS 6.4.2svn50340 (2012)
> 
> Excellent, congrats.
> 
> > A couple of hurdles I had on the way... simply following your initial
> > instruction of:
> >
> >> If you compile yourself, consider to switch to the 6.4.x release branch
> >> version (stable), which continuously receives bugfixes, using
> >> the command:
> >>
> >> svn checkout https://svn.osgeo.org/grass/grass/branches/releasebranch_6_4
> >> grass64_release
> >
> > did something in a terminal,
> 
> It downloads the source code to your local disk.
good to know what happened :-) (note for later explanations)
> 
> > seemed to indicate there were a lot of bits
> > to update to my existing 6.4.2RC2. But I don't think that command by
> > itself did anything to my GRASS version?
> 
> You needed to execute it in a fresh/empty directory. If you did so in
> an existing tree, you have a source code version mixture now. Better
> to fetch it again.

this is a good tip to include with INSTALL/Wiki (continued below)
> 
> > I tried running above, then doing 'configure' (with several custom
> > settings) and 'make' and 'checkinstall' which kept the computer busy for
> > awhile,
> 
> Yes, "make" does the compilation, i.e. "convert" the source code into
> a binary code which is machine readable.
> 
> > but still didn't seem to change my GRASS install... still
> > 6.4.2RC2 (2011) but not a svn version and not 2012??
> 
> Yes, because you likely missed the installation step:
> make install
> 
I used checkinstall in preference to make install because (at least on
ubuntu) it makes a .deb package for easy uninstall later on (I've found
that handy for spring-cleaning). Also use sudo. My problem here would
have been a result of not doing it in a clean/empty directory as you
noted above.

Use of checkinstall came straight from
http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Compile_and_Install_Ubuntu
(this page has been quite useful for several occasions of me installing
GRASS, thanks!)


> Note that this may require administrator (root) password or you have to
> do (depends on your distro):
> sudo make install
> 
> > After doing this, re-running 'svn update' suggested it was current, but
> > the GRASS program itself told me something else??
> 
> Yes (see above).
> 
> > I ended up following tips from
> > http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Working_with_SVN
> >
> > i.e. first downloading and installing an svn snapshot. This web page was
> > the only place I found that gave any clear info on how to start off with
> > svn versions.
> 
> Please tell us which places are *not* clear so that we can fix them.
> 
The downloads page
http://grass.osgeo.org/download/software.php#g64x
would be the starting point - either on this page or on the pages that
can be opened from here that relate to svn e.g.

on this page
http://grass.osgeo.org/devel/svn.php
you could provide a link 'how to (start to) use GRASS svn' to
http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Working_with_SVN
and/or
http://grass.osgeo.org/wiki/Compile_and_Install
(or would both these pages be better condensed into one?)

The same link/s could be done for
http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/DownloadSource

Note that 'Working with SVN' page could do with some correction at the
end of the 'first time' section - it goes as far as explaining 'svn
update' but doesn't state one must continue with ./configure, make and
make install (the reader can infer this from the next bit of info on
updating, but it doesn't need to be left up to inference;-) )

Markus, your tips above could be added to that 'Working with SVN' page,
in the "Setting it up first time" section, particularly if the 'svn
checkout' is an alternative to downloading, unpacking and updating a
snapshot as is currently described.
It would also help to give a short explanation on why 'svn checkout' or
'wget - tar - svn update' can both achieve the same outcome (if in fact
they do?) or, simply remove the latter steps and put the 'checkout'
instructions there.

Possibly a condensed note in the INSTALL file from line 39 (or from line
50):
source code or svn/snapshots should be downloaded and uncompressed to
clean/empty directories prior to compilation. Do not try to upgrade
existing versions or move an (official) release to svn by unpacking in
an existing GRASS directory. For more info see website (the 'Working
with svn' page I suggested above could replace the current address, or
leave as is if the extra links I suggested get added).


Hope my comments are of some use! Thanks again for the tips and patience
-shane.

> > I noted in the INSTALL files the process of updating svn was more
> > similar to this website than to Markus' tip above... but the install
> > file is dated July 2010. Is 'svn checkout' a newer option?
> 
> Certainly we do not touch every file in every release unless a
> file update is needed. If needed, please speak up.
> 
> To get updates now, just run in that source code directory:
> svn update  # this fetches updates
> make
> make install # as root or with sudo
> 
> Cheers
> Markus