This manual page describes the ShapeTools Version Binding
mechanism, available in most commands of the toolkit. The general
version binding options described on this page are available in
many commands such like vl(1) , vcat(1) , vadm(1) , save(1) and retrv(1)
(just to name the most important ones). The vbind command specific
options are private to the vbind command (see below).
Version binding is the process of selecting one or more versions
from a filenames history in order to provides access to these
version(s). This is conducted by version bind directives (or just
version bindings), which may be one of the following:
"ShapeTools-1.4", or "AtFS-2.0"
Version alias names are symbolic names tagged to single versions.
They must be unique throughout a history.
date specifications
"10.2.93" or "4.3." (European), "Feb 10, 1993" or "Mar
4{ (American)
A date may additionally contain a time in the form hh:mm or
hh:mm:ss. See sttime(3) for a complete list of recognized date
formats.
bind rule names
"most_recent:" (plain), "from_release(VC-4.0):" (with argument)
The colon is not part of the rule name. See the bindrules(7) manual
page for a description on how to define version bind rules.
By default, version binding selects all versions fulfilling the given
version bind requirements. The -uniq option changes this
behavior and treats only unique identification as success. With this
option given, version bind ignores all histories with more than one
selected version. The -last and -lastsaved options unify a
non unique selection by choosing the last version (modification/saving
time) or the last saved version (saving time) from the bind hit set of
each name.
The file $SHAPETOOLS/lib/shape/BindRules contains predefined
rules for various cases. You may also define your own rule file and
invoke this by either the -rulefile option or by extending the
search space defined by the SHAPETOOLS environment variable. For
information on how to write version bind rules, see the bindrules(7)
manual page.
VERSION BINDING IN ACTION
Version bind directives can be given either in brackets, directly
following the name to be bound, or as option arguments. Options may be
user to set version bindings to be applied to all name arguments
(-bind and -rule options) or to define version ranges
(-since and -before options).
Version identification by version number or version alias
either results in a unique selection or fails, when no appropriate
version was found.
foo[1.2]
Identifies a specific version by it's version number.
foo[release-2]
Is interpreted as identification by version alias name.
Version identification by date selects the versions from a
history that have been the most recently saved versions at the given
date. Identification by date may lead to multiple versions when
development work in multiple generations happened simultaneously at
the given date. Vbind understands various date formats such as in the
list below. The sttime(3) manual page lists all recognized date formats.
foo[Jan 31, 1992]
foo[92/01/31]
foo[10.5.92 7:00:00]
Version bind rules describe general version binding policies.
They are usually not dependent on particular file histories and may be
applied to all histories. Version bind rules may have arguments
enclosed in parentheses following the name.
foo[bind_rule:]
foo[bind_rule(arg1,arg2,...argN):]
When the colon at the end of the rule name in brackets is
omitted, vbind first interprets the given string as version alias.
When no version with this alias name was found, vbind treats the
string as rule name and gives it a second try.
Plain filenames are those not followed by any version bind directive
in square brackets. Without a rule given with the -rule option
on the command line, plain filenames are bound using the default
version bind rule. It selects the busy version if there is one, or
the most recent non busy version otherwise.
eq (state, busy); max (version).
The default version binding may also be indicated by an empty
pair of brackets:
foo[]
NAME PATTERNS
The ShapeTools version binding mechanism performs filename
substitution for given name patterns similar to sh(1) . This is
necessary, as shell filename substitution does not recognize the names
of saved versions. Magic cookies are are:
*
matching any string, including the empty string,
?
matching any single character,
[c...]
matching any one of the characters enclosed in the square brackets,
[l-r]
matching any character lexically between the left ( l) and the
right ( r) character, inclusive, and
[!c...]
[!l-r]
matching any character not recognized by their counterparts above.
As square brackets on the command line may either be part of a pattern
(e.g. *.[ch]) or a version binding (e.g. *[release-2]),
this may lead to some confusion. The leftmost pair of brackets is
always interpreted as version binding. Hence, in the first case,
the string will be misinterpreted and you must add an explicit version
binding to avoid this (e.g. *.[ch][], default version binding
added).
GENERAL VERSION BINDING OPTIONS
-beforebaseline
Define the lower boundary of a time interval for selecting all
versions evolved in this interval. Baseline can be any version
bind directive uniquely selecting a version (e.g. version number,
version alias, or date). The saving date of the baseline version is
the interval start time. The boundary version (exactly matching the
time given) is not included in the result set.
-bindversion binding
Use version binding for binding each name on the command line,
that has no explicit version binding in brackets.
-last
Select the last (modification/saving time) version of each nonunique
selection. This causes the resulting version list to contain at most
one version of each history. -last may be combined with other
version bindings.
-lastsaved
Like -last, but busy versions are ignored.
-nonuniq
Force non-unique version identification. This option can be used to
swich off the default behavior of some commands (e.g. vadm) that
suggests unique version identification.
-rulerulename | rulebody
With a name argument, this option sets the named rule as default rule
for binding all names on the command line. Alternatively, a rule body
(a version selection rule without a name) may be given as argument,
which will be evaluated for each name on the command line.
This option disables any previous -bind or -rule definition. It does
not affect names with a version binding in brackets.
-rulefilefilename
Read in the named rule file and add all contained rules to the
list of known rules. A syntactical error, detected while parsing a
rule causes the according rule to be skipped. Use vbind(1) with the
-ruleerr option for inspecting bind rule files.
Multiple rule files may be specified on the command line.
-sincebaseline
Define the upper boundary of a time interval for selecting all versions
evolved in this interval. Baseline can be any version
bind directive uniquely selecting a version (e.g. version number,
version alias, or date. The saving date of the
baseline version is the interval end time. The boundary version
(exactly matching the time given) is not included in the result
set.
-trace
Trace the evaluation. Each evaluated predicate is reported to
standard output. Additionally, the set of versions fulfilling the
expressed (the hits set) is displayed after
evaluation of each predicate.
-uniq
Require unique version identification. All history names on the
command line, where multiple versions meet the version
bind requirements are ignored.
THE VBIND COMMAND
Vbind performs a version binding and returns a bound
filename for each selected version. A bound filename is a filename
followed by a version number enclosed in brackets (e.g. foo[1.2]).
-?, -help
Display a short usage description.
-aliasversion alias
Use version alias for binding all names on the command line. This
disables any previous -alias, -bind, -date, -rule or -vnum definition.
It does not affect names in pseudo bound version notation.
-datedate
Use date for binding all names occurring on the command line. This
disables any previous -alias, -bind, date, -rule or -vnum definition.
It does not affect names in pseudo bound version notation.
-nomsgSuppress output produced by version bind rules.
-ruledump
The -ruledump option causes all known version bind rules to be
written to standard output. The generated output contains all rule
definitions in regular format and may be used as input rulefile for
subsequent calls of vbind.
-ruleerr
This option makes sense, when testing a new, hand written file
containing bind rules. The -ruleerr option causes syntax errors
detected in the rule file to be reported to standard error. Make sure,
that this option occurs on the command line prior to the rulefile to
be inspected.
-rulelist
Write a list of all known rule names to standard output.
-ruletest
Interpret all names on the command line as rule names and test the
existence of equally named rules in the list of known rules.
-version
Print version identification of vbind command and used libraries.
-vnumversion number
Use version number for binding all names on the command line. This
disables any previous -alias, -bind, -date, -rule or -vnum definition.
It does not affect names in pseudo bound version notation.
ENVIRONMENT
SHAPETOOLS - list of path names as search space for files
containing version bind rules. The bind rule files must be named
BindRules. Default path is /usr/local/lib/shape.
