Re: Changing the commit message after the fact

Gary Affonso wrote:
> I need to change some commit-messages on commits that have already been
> done. I did some Googling and it looks like this will work:
>
> (from the server)
>
> svnadmin setlog -r <revision_number> --bypass-hook <file_with_message>
>
> My questions:
>
> 1) There was a note that the above technique would blow away the "history".
> That worried me a little. What "history" does this kill?

It will leave no trace of the previous log message. If you'd like to
have the previous log message preserved, you should set up a
pre-revprop-change hook.

> 2) Is there really no good way to do this from a client?

You can do this from the client by using "svn propset" to change the
svn:log property associated with a revision. It's a revision property,
so you need to pass the --revprop flag. For example, put your new log
message in a file called "log.msg" and run this to change the log
message for revision X:

svn propset svn:log --revprop -rX -F log.msg svn://repos/url

I believe that in order to do this, you *must* set up a
pre-revprop-change hook on the server, because of the possibility of
losing the old log message forever (or accidentally losing the wrong
one, if you specify a wrong X).

--
Michael W Thelen
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potatoes.       -- Douglas Adams