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  12 <title>Subversion 1.2 Release Notes</title>
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  18 <h1 style="text-align: center">Subversion 1.2 Release Notes</h1>
  19
  20 <div class="h2" id="news" title="news">
  21 <h2>What's New in Subversion 1.2</h2>
  22
  23 <ul>
  24    <li>Optional locking ("reserved checkouts")</li>
  25    <li>Full WebDAV autoversioning</li>
  26    <li>FSFS repository back end is now the default</li>
  27    <li>Faster access to old revisions</li>
  28    <li>Many improved APIs</li>
  29    <li>Many bugfixes</li>
  30 </ul>
  31
  32 <p>Subversion 1.2 is a superset of all previous Subversion releases.
  33 Anything in 1.0.x and 1.1.x is also in 1.2, but 1.2 contains features
  34 and bugfixes not present in any earlier release.  The new features
  35 will eventually be documented in a 1.2 version of the free Subversion
  36 book, see
  37 <a href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com">svnbook.red-bean.com</a>.</p>
  38
  39 </div>
  40
  41 <div class="h2" id="downloading" title="downloading">
  42 <h2>Downloading</h2>
  43
  44 <p>Subversion 1.2 is available as source code in three formats:</p>
  45
  46 <ul>
  47 <li><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.2.3.tar.gz"
  48     >subversion-1.2.3.tar.gz</a></li>
  49 <li><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.2.3.tar.bz2"
  50     >subversion-1.2.3.tar.bz2</a></li>
  51 <li><a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/downloads/subversion-1.2.3.zip"
  52     >subversion-1.2.3.zip</a>&nbsp;(Windows)</li>
  53 </ul>
  54
  55 <p>For binary packages, please see <a
  56 href="project_packages.html#binary-packages">the binary package
  57 list</a>.  Note that binary packages usually come out about a week
  58 after the corresponding source release.  The package maintainers are
  59 volunteers, so please don't harass them&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;they know
  60 when a new source release has come out, and they work as fast as they
  61 can to make binaries available.</p>
  62
  63 <p>For other Subversion releases, see <a
  64 href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=260&amp;expandFolder=74"
  65 >this folder</a>.</p>
  66
  67 </div>
  68
  69 <div class="h2" id="compatibility" title="compatibility">
  70 <h2>Compatibility Concerns</h2>
  71
  72 <p>Older clients and servers interoperate transparently with 1.2
  73 servers and clients.  Of course, some of the new 1.2 features may not
  74 be available unless both client and server are the latest version.
  75 There is <strong>no need</strong> to upgrade your repositories;
  76 Subversion 1.2 can read repositories created by earlier versions.  To
  77 upgrade an existing installation, just install the newest libraries
  78 and binaries on top of the older ones. (<em>WARNING:</em> if you're
  79 using Berkeley DB repositories, installing a new binary distribution
  80 of Subversion may force you to upgrade Berkeley DB as well, see
  81 <a href="#bdb-upgrade">Unexpected Berkeley DB Upgrades</a> below.)</p>
  82
  83 <p>Subversion 1.2 maintains API/ABI compatibility with earlier
  84 releases, by only adding new functions.  A program written to the 1.0
  85 or 1.1 API can both compile and run using 1.2 libraries.  However, a
  86 program written for 1.2 cannot necessarily compile or run against
  87 older libraries.</p>
  88
  89 <div class="h3" id="output-changes" title="output-changes">
  90 <h3>Command Line Output Changes</h3>
  91
  92 <p>Although the Subversion developers try hard to keep output from the
  93 command line programs compatible between releases, new information
  94 sometimes has to be added.  This might break scripts that rely on the
  95 exact format of the output.  In 1.2, the following changes have been
  96 made to the output:</p>
  97
  98 <ul>
  99 <li><p>For <tt>svn update</tt>, the paths have been shifted two
 100        columns to the right, thus they start in column five.  Column
 101        three now contains a <tt>B</tt> when a lock was broken or
 102        stolen.</p></li>
 103 <li><p><tt>svn status</tt> adds information about locks in the sixth
 104        column.  Note that this column was previously unused, so the
 105        old information is still in the same positions as
 106        before.</p></li>
 107 <li><p>Several lines were added to the <tt>svn info</tt> output,
 108        containing lock information.</p></li>
 109 </ul>
 110
 111 </div>
 112
 113 <div class="h3" id="bdb-upgrade" title="bdb-upgrade">
 114 <h3>Unexpected Berkeley DB Upgrades</h3>
 115
 116 <p>This is not actually related to the Subversion 1.2 release, but it
 117 may affect you if you upgrade to 1.2 via a package distribution
 118 system.</p>
 119
 120 <p>A lot of operating systems now ship Berkeley DB 4.3.  Sometimes the
 121 system Berkeley DB libraries can be unintentionally upgraded to 4.3 as
 122 part of some other change pulled down via an OS package delivery
 123 mechanism&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;for example, upgrading one's Subversion
 124 package.  If this happens to you, you will need
 125 to <a href="faq.html#bdb43-upgrade">upgrade existing BerkeleyDB-based
 126 repositories to 4.3.</a></p>
 127
 128 <p>In particular,
 129 the <a
 130 href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=91">latest
 131 Windows binary distributions</a> of svn 1.2 (from Branko Cibej) now
 132 use Berkeley DB 4.3.  Please be warned!</p>
 133
 134 </div>
 135
 136 </div>
 137
 138 <div class="h2" id="known-bugs" title="known-bugs">
 139 <h2>Known Bugs</h2>
 140
 141 <p>Subversion 1.2.3 fixes several bugs in 1.2.1 and 1.2.0 (1.2.2 was a
 142   placeholder release and was never officially blessed).  See the <a
 143   href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/NewsItemView?newsItemID=1261"
 144   >1.2.3 announcement</a> and
 145   <a href="http://subversion.tigris.org/servlets/NewsItemView?newsItemID=1202"
 146   >1.2.1 announcement</a> for details about those releases.</p>
 147
 148 <p>As bugs are fixed in /trunk (the future svn 1.3), they will
 149   continue to be backported to the 1.2 line for future 1.2.x
 150   releases.  Here is
 151   the <a
 152   href="http://subversion.tigris.org/issues/buglist.cgi?component=subversion&amp;issue_status=UNCONFIRMED&amp;issue_status=NEW&amp;issue_status=STARTED&amp;issue_status=REOPENED">list
 153   of open issues</a>.</p>
 154
 155 </div>
 156
 157 <div class="h2" id="new-features" title="new-features">
 158 <h2>New Features</h2>
 159
 160 <div class="h3" id="locking" title="locking">
 161 <h3>File Locking (<em>requires new client and server</em>)</h3>
 162
 163 <p>"Locking" is a long-requested feature, often known in other systems
 164 as "reserved checkouts".  While Subversion is still primarily a <a
 165 href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch02s02.html#svn-ch-2-sect-2.3">copy-modify-merge</a>
 166 system focused on parallel development, there is widespread
 167 acknowledgement that not all files are easily mergeable &mdash;
 168 binary files in particular, such as artwork, compressed files,
 169 proprietary binary formats, or any other non-line-based data.</p>
 170
 171 <p>The goal of the new locking feature is twofold.  First, provide a
 172 means to force serialized write-access to a file.  Second, provide a
 173 communication mechanism to prevent users from wasting time on
 174 unmergable changes.</p>
 175
 176 <p>This feature is now documented in the nightly build of the svn 1.2
 177 book,
 178 available <a
 179 href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.advanced.locking.html">here</a>.
 180 (Note that this link is temporary; when the 1.2 book is finished, the
 181 URL may change.)</p>
 182
 183 <p><strong>Warning</strong>: if locks are in use in a repository,
 184 then a pre-1.2 libsvn_fs library won't see or enforce them.  This is
 185 really only relevant to teams of users all accessing the repository
 186 via <tt>file://</tt>.  For example, an svn 1.2 client might lock a
 187 file, but a statically-linked svn 1.1 or 1.0 client (accessing via
 188 <tt>file://</tt>) will unknowingly ignore the lock.  The workaround,
 189 of course, is to set up a real server process &mdash; thereby
 190 guaranteeing that only libsvn_fs 1.2 ever accesses the
 191 repository.</p>
 192
 193 </div>
 194
 195 <div class="h3" id="autoversioning" title="autoversioning">
 196 <h3>Full DAV autoversioning (<em>mod_dav_svn feature</em>)</h3>
 197
 198 <p>Autoversioning is a feature whereby generic WebDAV clients can
 199 write to a DeltaV server (like mod_dav_svn), and the server performs
 200 commits silently in the background.  This means that if you use Apache
 201 httpd as your Subversion server, then most modern operating systems
 202 can mount the repository as a network share, and non-technical users
 203 get "transparent" versioning for free.  (Of course, technical users
 204 can still use Subversion clients to examine repository history.)</p>
 205
 206 <p>Prior to Subversion 1.2, mod_dav_svn had only partial
 207 interoperability with generic DAV clients.  <a
 208 href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/apc.html">Appendix C</a> in
 209 the Subversion 1.1 book documented the trials and tribulations of this
 210 exercise.  At most, one could use a DAV client to drag files into a
 211 mounted repository, but the files couldn't be edited directly from the
 212 network share.  Some clients even refused to mount the Subversion
 213 repository.</p>
 214
 215 <p>Now that the repository supports locking, generic DAV clients can
 216 happily issue http LOCK and UNLOCK requests, and files can be
 217 opened/edited directly from the share.  As far as we can tell,
 218 mod_dav_svn is now fully implementing the 'autoversioning' feature
 219 according to the <a
 220 href="http://greenbytes.de/tech/webdav/#draft-ietf-webdav-rfc2518bis">RFC2518bis</a>
 221 specification.</p>
 222
 223 <p>In informal tests, we've had success reading and writing to
 224 Subversion repositories via Windows Web Folders, OS X Finder, Gnome
 225 Nautilus, KDE Konqueror, and other DAV clients.</p>
 226
 227 <p>To activate autoversioning, simply set <tt>SVNAutoversioning
 228 on</tt> in your httpd.conf's Subversion <tt>Location</tt> block.  Be
 229 warned, however, that making your repository writable by generic DAV
 230 clients may result in lots of small commits.  A DAV client may seem to
 231 be saving a file, but is in fact performing several write operations
 232 under the hood, each resulting in a separate commit.  Experiences may
 233 vary.</p>
 234
 235 <p>This feature is now documented in the nightly build of the svn 1.2
 236 book,
 237 available <a
 238 href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/nightly/en/svn.webdav.html">here</a>.
 239 (Note that this link is temporary; when the 1.2 book is finished, the
 240 URL may change.)</p>
 241
 242
 243 </div>
 244
 245 <div class="h3" id="new-switches" title="new-switches">
 246 <h3>New subcommand switches:</h3>
 247    <dl>
 248       <dt><tt>svn log --limit N</tt></dt>
 249       <dd>Display only N revisions, then stop.  (<em>Note: a 1.2
 250       server isn't required for this, but strongly recommended.  A
 251       pre-1.2 server will still attempt to deliver all revisions over
 252       the network, even though the 1.2 client isn't displaying them.</em>)</dd>
 253
 254       <dt><tt>svn info --revision (-r)</tt></dt>
 255       <dd>Show detailed info on older versions of items.</dd>
 256
 257       <dt><tt>svn list --xml</tt></dt>
 258       <dd>Output listing in XML.</dd>
 259
 260       <dt><tt>svn propset --force</tt></dt>
 261       <dd>Allow unusual propsets, such as svn:eol-style on a file with
 262           a binary svn:mime-type..</dd>
 263
 264       <dt><tt>svn diff --force</tt></dt>
 265       <dd>Show differences even on files with binary mime-types.</dd>
 266
 267       <dt><tt>svn checkout/update/status/export --ignore-externals</tt></dt>
 268       <dd>Don't process any svn:externals during operation.</dd>
 269
 270       <dt><tt>svn export --non-recursive (-N)</tt></dt>
 271       <dd>Don't export subdirectories.</dd>
 272
 273       <dt><tt>svnversion --help</tt></dt>
 274       <dd>Show help on <tt>svnversion</tt>.</dd>
 275
 276       <dt><tt>svnlook diff --no-diff-added</tt></dt>
 277       <dd>Don't show added files in the diffs.  Companion to
 278           <tt>--no-diff-deleted</tt>.</dd>
 279
 280       <dt><tt>svnlook propget/proplist --revprop</tt></dt>
 281       <dd>Examine revision props, instead of normal versioned properties.</dd>
 282
 283       <dt><tt>svnadmin load --use-pre-commit-hook / --use-post-commit-hook</tt></dt>
 284       <dd>Invoke <tt>pre-commit</tt> or <tt>post-commit</tt> hooks
 285           when loading a dumpfile into a repository.</dd>
 286    </dl>
 287
 288 </div>
 289
 290 </div>
 291
 292 <div class="h2" id="enhancements" title="enhancements">
 293 <h2>Enhancements and Bugfixes</h2>
 294
 295 <div class="h3" id="xdelta" title="xdelta">
 296 <h3>Faster access to old revisions due to xdelta compression
 297 (<em>server</em>)</h3>
 298
 299 <p>The repository is now using the xdelta differencing algorithm
 300 (instead of vdelta) to store compressed difference data.  When you
 301 upgrade to Subversion 1.2, existing repositories will continue to work
 302 fine; the revision history will simply be a mixture of xdelta and
 303 vdelta differences.</p>
 304
 305 <p>The xdelta algorithm is much faster at reconstructing older files,
 306 and thus there's motivation to dump and reload your existing
 307 repository.  If you do this, you forcibly re-compress all repository
 308 history using the xdelta algorithm, resulting in a noticeable speedup
 309 in operations that ask the server to reconstruct older data: <tt>svn
 310 blame</tt>, <tt>svn checkout</tt>, <tt>svn update</tt>, <tt>svn
 311 diff</tt>, <tt>svn merge</tt>, and so on.  Even dumping the repository
 312 will be faster.</p>
 313
 314 <p><strong>Note:</strong> There's a small trade off between speed and
 315 disk space.  If you choose to re-deltify your whole repository using
 316 xdelta, its size will grow by roughly 10 to 15 percent.</p>
 317
 318 </div>
 319
 320 <div class="h3" id="fsfs" title="fsfs">
 321 <h3>FSFS repositories are now the default (<em>server</em>)</h3>
 322
 323 <p>After the tremendous success of FSFS repositories since the 1.1
 324 release, we've changed the <tt>svnadmin create</tt> command to create
 325 FSFS repositories by default.  This should provide a friendlier "out
 326 of box" experience for new users.</p>
 327
 328 <p><strong>Note</strong>: Berkeley DB repositories are
 329 <strong>not</strong> being phased out or deprecated in any way.  The
 330 reliability problems we've seen lie not in Berkeley DB itself, but in
 331 the unique way Subversion uses Berkeley DB.  Cooperative work is
 332 currently underway (with Sleepycat engineers) to address these issues.
 333 Berkeley DB repositories are still older and better-tested than FSFS
 334 repositories in terms of scalability; the project still recommends you
 335 <a
 336 href="http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.1/ch05.html#svn-ch-5-sect-1.3">read
 337 about the two back-ends in the book</a> and make an informed
 338 choice.</p>
 339
 340 </div>
 341
 342 <div class="h3" id="win32-password-encryption"
 343                 title="win32-password-encryption">
 344 <h3>Cached passwords are encrypted on Windows (<em>Windows client</em>)</h3>
 345
 346 <p>On Windows 2000 and later, the command-line client encrypts the
 347 cached passwords used for authenticating to a remote Subversion server
 348 (via the <tt>http://</tt> or <tt>svn://</tt> protocols). Existing,
 349 unencrypted cached passwords are automatically encrypted the first
 350 time they are used.</p>
 351
 352 <p>This feature does not extend to stored passphrases for client SSL
 353 certificates.</p>
 354
 355 <p><strong>Note:</strong> The client uses the standard Windows
 356 Cryptography services to encrypt and decrypt the password. Among other
 357 things, this means that the encryption key is managed by Windows and
 358 can only be accessed by the user account that owns it. If an
 359 administrator forcibly resets the account password, the encryption key
 360 (and consequently the cached passwords) will no longer be accessible
 361 (by the way, the same holds for the contents of NTFS-encrypted
 362 files). The Subversion client will detect this and proceed as if the
 363 password were not known; that is, it will prompt the user for the
 364 password when necessary.</p>
 365
 366 </div>
 367
 368 <div class="h3" id="bugfixes" title="bugfixes">
 369 <h3>Bugfixes:</h3>
 370 <p>More than 50 new bugs fixed.  See the <a
 371 href="http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/CHANGES">CHANGES</a> file
 372       for details.</p>
 373
 374 </div>
 375
 376 </div>
 377
 378 <div class="h2" id="developer-changes" title="developer-changes">
 379 <h2>Developer Changes</h2>
 380
 381 <p>The svn_ra.h API has now been "flattened", essentially imitating
 382 the same way the svn_fs.h API hides multiple implementations.  Instead
 383 of making calls into an RA vtable (<tt>ra-&gt;do_foo()</tt>), all RA
 384 functions are now usable directly in the form
 385 <tt>svn_ra_do_foo()</tt>. This also has the nice side-effect of
 386 making svn_ra.h available via SWIG. </p>
 387
 388 <p>As with svn 1.1, a number of new 1.2 functions have been
 389 introduced, and older versions are now marked deprecated (and will be
 390 removed in Subversion 2.0).  See the <a
 391 href="http://svn.collab.net/repos/svn/trunk/CHANGES">CHANGES</a> file
 392 for details.  The full list of new 1.2 APIs is <a
 393 href="http://svn.haxx.se/dev/archive-2005-04/0319.shtml">here</a>.</p>
 394
 395 <p>There has been extensive work on the Python, Perl, and JavaHL
 396 bindings.  We also now have a preliminary set of Ruby bindings.</p>
 397
 398 </div>
 399
 400 <div class="h2" id="svn-1.0-deprecation" title="svn-1.0-deprecation">
 401 <h2>Deprecation of 1.0.x Series</h2>
 402
 403 <p>The Subversion 1.0.x line is no longer supported.  This doesn't
 404 mean that your 1.0 installation is doomed; if it works well and is all
 405 you need, that's fine.  "No longer supported" just means we've stopped
 406 accepting bug reports against 1.0.x versions, and will not make any
 407 more 1.0.x bugfix releases (except perhaps for a critical security or
 408 data-loss bug.)</p>
 409
 410 </div>
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