Question

Until recently it was simple to read all the SVN:Externals referenced in a subversion working copy by just reading some text files stored in the .svn subdirectory. With the change to a new on disk structure using mysql tables this is no longer that simple.

I want to update an internally used tool that used to read that list of externals to using the new structure. The Tool is written in Delphi 2007 so I would prefer some code written in Delphi.

There is Version Insight for RAD Studio on sourceforge which might contain some code to do the trick but I wonder if any body else has maybe already gone through the work of extracting the required parts from that project or has an alternative.

Answer 1

You can also do it programmatically, using the Subversion client DLLs. Here is a minimal example written in Delphi XE:

program svnext;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  SysUtils,
  SvnClient;

procedure Main;
var
  SvnClient: TSvnClient;
  SvnItem: TSvnItem;
begin
  // Subversion client DLL directory; here I simply use the .exe's directory
  // (I copied the DLLs there manually.)
  BaseDllDir := ExtractFilePath(ParamStr(0));

  SvnClient := nil;
  SvnItem := nil;
  try
    SvnClient := TSvnClient.Create;
    SvnClient.Initialize;
    SvnItem := TSvnItem.Create(SvnClient, nil, ParamStr(1));
    Writeln(SvnItem.PropValues['svn:externals']);
  finally
    SvnItem.Free;
    SvnClient.Free;
  end;
end;

begin
  try
    Main;
  except
    on E: Exception do
    begin
      ExitCode := 1;
      Writeln(Format('[%s] %s', [E.ClassName, E.Message]));
    end;
  end;
end.

You might have to tweak the code for Delphi 2007. It seems Version Insight has evolved in the meantime and lost (some of) the backward compatibility.