aedb1

Usage

Overview

The aegis -Develop_Begin command is used to commence development of a change.

The development directory for the change will be created automatically; below the directory specified in the default_development_directory field of aeuconf(5), or if not set below the directory specified in the default_development_directory field of aepattr(5), or if not set below the current user's home directory. It is rare to need to know the exact pathname of the development directory, as the aecd(1) command can take you there at any time.

Successful execution of this command will move the specified change from the awaiting development state to the being developed state. boxwid = 1 down S1: box "awaiting" "development" arrow " develop" ljust " begin" ljust S2: box "being" "developed" T1: spline -> from S2.w then left 0.75 then up 11/12 then to 1/3<S1.sw,S1.nw> " develop" ljust " begin" ljust " undo" ljust at T1.c - (0.75,0)

Administrator override

It is possible for project administrators to use the -User option to force a developer to start developing a change. Some sites prefer to work this way. Note that developers still have the ability to use the aedbu(1) command.

Warning: capricious use of this command will rapidly alienate developers. The defaulting rules, particularly for the change number, depend on aegis and the developer agreeing on what the developer is currently working on.

The forced_develop_begin_notify_command project attribute (see aepattr(5) for more information) will be run when an administrator uses the -User option, in an attempt to minimize the surprises for developers. A suitable command is

forced_develop_begin_notify_command =
    "$datadir/db_forced.sh $p $c $developer";

This command will send e-mail to the developer, informing her that the change has been assigned to her.

Symbolic links

Many dependency maintenance tools, and indeed some compilers, have little or no support for include file search paths, and thus for the concept of the two-level directory hierarchy employed by Aegis. (It becomes multi-level when Aegis' branching functionality is used.) To allow these tools to be used, Aegis provides the ability to maintain a set of symbolic links between the development directory of a change and the baseline of a project, so it appears to these tools that all of the project's files are present in the development directory.

development_directory_style =
{
    source_file_symlink = true;
    during_build_only = true;
};

development_directory_style =
{
    source_file_symlink = true;
};

development_directory_style =
{
    source_file_link = true;
    source_file_symlink = true;
};

development_directory_style =
{
    source_file_copy = true;
};

Options

The following options are understood:

-Change number

This option may be used to specify a particular change within a project. See aegis(1) for a complete description of this option.

-DIRectory path

This option may be used to specify which directory is to be used. It is an error if the current user does not have appropriate permissions to create the directory path given. This must be an absolute path.

Caution: If you are using an automounter do not use `pwd` to make an absolute path, it usually gives the wrong answer.

-Help

This option may be used to obtain more information about how to use the aegis program.

-List

This option may be used to obtain a list of suitable subjects for this command. The list may be more general than expected.

-Project name

This option may be used to select the project of interest. When no -Project option is specified, the AEGIS_PROJECT environment variable is consulted. If that does not exist, the user's $HOME/.aegisrc file is examined for a default project field (see aeuconf(5) for more information). If that does not exist, when the user is only working on changes within a single project, the project name defaults to that project. Otherwise, it is an error.

-REAson text

This option may be used to attach a comment to the change history generated by this command. You will need to use quotes to insulate the spaces from the shell.

-TERse

This option may be used to cause listings to produce the bare minimum of information. It is usually useful for shell scripts.

-User name

This option is used to specify the user who is to develop the change. This option may only be used by a project administrator.

-Verbose

This option may be used to cause aegis to produce more output. By default aegis only produces output on errors. When used with the -List option this option causes column headings to be added.

-Wait

This option may be used to require Aegis commands to wait for access locks, if they cannot be obtained immediately. Defaults to the user's lock_wait_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.

-No_Wait

This option may be used to require Aegis commands to emit a fatal error if access locks cannot be obtained immediately. Defaults to the user's lock_wait_preference if not specified, see aeuconf(5) for more information.

See also aegis(1) for options common to all aegis commands.

All options may be abbreviated; the abbreviation is documented as the upper case letters, all lower case letters and underscores (_) are optional. You must use consecutive sequences of optional letters.

All options are case insensitive, you may type them in upper case or lower case or a combination of both, case is not important.

For example: the arguments "-project, "-PROJ" and "-p" are all interpreted to mean the -Project option. The argument "-prj" will not be understood, because consecutive optional characters were not supplied.

Options and other command line arguments may be mixed arbitrarily on the command line, after the function selectors.

The GNU long option names are understood. Since all option names for aegis are long, this means ignoring the extra leading '-'. The "--option=value" convention is also understood.

Recommended alias

The recommended alias for this command is

csh%	alias aedb 'aegis -db \!* -v'
sh$	aedb(){aegis -db "$@" -v}

Errors

It is an error if the change does not exist.
It is an error if the change is not in the awaiting development state.
It is an error if the current user is not a developer of the specified project.

Exit status

The aegis command will exit with a status of 1 on any error. The aegis command will only exit with a status of 0 if there are no errors.

Environment

See aegis(1) for a list of environment variables which may affect this command. See aepconf(5) for the project configuration file's project_specific field for how to set environment variables for all commands executed by Aegis.