Light-weight/very-simple version control under Windows using Python?

[python]

I have some very simple use cases[1] for adding some version control
capabilities to a product I'm working on. My product uses simple, text
(UTF-8) based scripts that are independent of one another. I would like
to "version control" these scripts on behalf of my users. By version
control, I mean *very-simple* version control with no branching or
merging - just the ability to store, list and restore a specific version
of a file. The data store should be a local file with the ability to
upsize to a multi-user database in the future.

I'm looking for recommendations on possible solutions:

1. Use an existing version control utility. There are lots of options
here(!), any recommendations on a light weight, open source one that
xcopy installs under Windows with lots of command line options?

2. Interface to a hosted version control system (SaaS) that provides a
RESTful API. Any recommendations here?

3. Build this capability myself using Python and Python's DBI layer to
store files in a local SQLite database at first (but with the ability to
upsize to a real client server database in the future). Seems like a fun
project to work on, but also smells like I'd be re-inventing the wheel
with very little value added other than simpler deployment?

Any suggestions appreciated.

Malcolm

[1] Here's my use cases:

1. Check a file in with optional comment and username; ideally
get a version number that can be used to reference this specific
check-in in the future.

2. Get a history listing of all checkins for a specific file
(version number, timestamp, file size, user, comment)

3. Check out a specific version of a file by version number.

4. Delete checked-in versions by version number, date range,
and/or username.

5. (Optional) Diff 2 versions of a file by version number and
return diff in richly formatted format that visually shows
changes via color and font effects (strikethru) (I'm thinking
of using BeyondCompare for this if not present in a simple
version control tool)

 

[Anssi Saari]

1. Use an existing version control utility. There are lots of options
here(!), any recommendations on a light weight, open source one that
xcopy installs under Windows with lots of command line options?

Personally, I like RCS. It seems fulfil your requirements. You can get
it for Windows from http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/trinkle/RCS/.

 

[Günther Dietrich]

I have some very simple use cases[1] for adding some version control
capabilities to a product I'm working on. My product uses simple, text
(UTF-8) based scripts that are independent of one another. I would like
to "version control" these scripts on behalf of my users. By version
control, I mean *very-simple* version control with no branching or
merging - just the ability to store, list and restore a specific version
of a file. The data store should be a local file with the ability to
upsize to a multi-user database in the future.

I'm looking for recommendations on possible solutions:

1. Use an existing version control utility. There are lots of options
here(!), any recommendations on a light weight, open source one that
xcopy installs under Windows with lots of command line options?

2. Interface to a hosted version control system (SaaS) that provides a
RESTful API. Any recommendations here?

3. Build this capability myself using Python and Python's DBI layer to
store files in a local SQLite database at first (but with the ability to
upsize to a real client server database in the future). Seems like a fun
project to work on, but also smells like I'd be re-inventing the wheel
with very little value added other than simpler deployment?

Any suggestions appreciated.

Use Mercurial (<http://mercurial.selenic.com>). It is written in python,
can be extended by python modules/packages and can be used by python
programs directly.

1. Check a file in with optional comment and username; ideally
get a version number that can be used to reference this specific
check-in in the future.

That's a basic task in mercurial (as probably in every version control
system).

2. Get a history listing of all checkins for a specific file
(version number, timestamp, file size, user, comment)

Also avalilable. I am not sure about file size and comment, but if you
have the list of version numbers, you can extract this info from the
repository easily.

3. Check out a specific version of a file by version number.

See point 1.

4. Delete checked-in versions by version number, date range,
and/or username.

I've never tried it with mercurial. There are a remove and a forget
command. Maybe, one could use the rebase extension.

But deleting changesets from a repository usually is a bad idea.

5. (Optional) Diff 2 versions of a file by version number and
return diff in richly formatted format that visually shows
changes via color and font effects (strikethru) (I'm thinking
of using BeyondCompare for this if not present in a simple
version control tool)

Also available.



Regards,

Günther