NAME

       svn-bisect - Bisect Subversion revisions to find a regression

SYNOPSIS

       svn-bisect start [good_rev [bad_rev]]

       svn-bisect {good|bad} [rev]

       svn-bisect run command

       svn-bisect reset

       svn-bisect status

DESCRIPTION

       svn-bisect  helps  to  automate  finding  a bug or behavior change in a Subversion working
       copy.  Given an initial “good” revision, with the desired  or  original  behavior,  and  a
       newer “bad” revision, with the undesired or modified behavior, svn-bisect will do a binary
       search through the revision range to find which revision caused the change.

       svn-bisect must be initialized in a working copy, with svn-bisect start.  It also needs to
       be  given  at  least one good revision (the baseline) and one bad revision (known modified
       behavior) revision.

       Sub-commands:

       start  Initializes or reinitializes svn-bisect; optionally takes  good  and  bad  revision
              parameters.

       good rev

       bad rev
              Tells  svn-bisect  that a revision is good or bad, defining or narrowing the search
              space.  If not specified, revision defaults to the current revision in the  working
              copy.   svn-bisect  will then update to a revision halfway between the new good and
              bad boundaries.  If this update crosses a point where  a  branch  was  created,  it
              switches in or out of the branch.

       reset  Resets  the working copy to the revision and branch where svn-bisect start was run.
              In the simple case this is equivalent to rm -r .svn-bisect; svn update, but not  if
              it has crossed branches, and not if you did not start at the HEAD revision.  In any
              case, svn-bisect never keeps track of mixed-revision working copies, so do not  use
              svn-bisect in a working copy that will need to be restored to mixed revisions.

       status Prints a brief status message.

       run command
              Runs  the  bisection in a loop.  You must have already defined initial good and bad
              boundary conditions.  Each iteration through the  loop  runs  command  as  a  shell
              command (a single argument, quoted if necessary) on the chosen revision, then marks
              the revision as good or bad, based on the exit status of command.

EXAMPLES

       Assume you are trying to find which revision between 1250 and 1400 caused the  make  check
       command to fail.

           svn-bisect start 1250 1400
           svn-bisect run 'make check'
           svn-bisect reset

ENVIRONMENT

       SVN    The Subversion command-line program to call (default svn).

FILES

       .svn-bisect
              The directory containing state information, removed after a successful bisection.

SEE ALSO

       git-bisect(1).

AUTHOR

       Written  by  Robert Millan and Peter Samuelson, for the Debian Project (but may be used by
       others).

                                            2009-10-22                              SVN-BISECT(1)