3.2. The Wireshark Subversion repository
Subversion is used to keep track of the changes made to the Wireshark
source code. The Wireshark source code is stored inside Wireshark project's
Subversion repository located at a server at the wireshark.org domain.
To quote the Subversion book about "What is Subversion?":
“Subversion is a free/open-source version control system. That is,
Subversion manages files and directories over time. A tree of files is
placed into a central repository. The repository is much like an ordinary
file server, except that it remembers every change ever made to your files
and directories. This allows you to recover older versions of your data,
or examine the history of how your data changed. In this regard, many
people think of a version control system as a sort of "time machine".
”
![[Tip]](wsdg_graphics/tip.png)
|
Tip: Subversion and SVN is the same! |
|
Subversion is often abbreviated as SVN, as the command-line tools are
abbreviated that way. You will find both terms with the same meaning in
this book, in mailing list discussions and elsewhere.
|
Using Wireshark's Subversion repository you can:
-
keep your private sources up to date with very little effort
-
get a mail notification if someone changes the latest sources
-
get the source files from any previous release (or any other point in time)
-
have a quick look at the sources using a web interface
-
see which person changed a specific piece of code
-
... and a lot more things related to the history of the Wireshark source
code development
Subversion is divided into a client and a server part.
Thanks to Gerald Combs (the maintainer of the Subversion server),
no user has to deal with the maintenance of the Subversion server.
You will only need a Subversion client, which is available as
both a command-line and a GUI tool for many different platforms.
For further reference about Subversion, have a look at the homepage of the
Subversion project: https://subversion.tigris.org/. There
is a good and free book about it available at: https://svnbook.red-bean.com/.
Please note that Wireshark's public (anonymous) Subversion repository is
separate from the main repository.
It may take several minutes for committed changes to appear in the
public repository - so please be patient for a few minutes if you
desperately need a code change that was committed to the repository
very recently.
3.2.1. The web interface to the Subversion repository
If you need a quick look at the Wireshark source code,
you will only need a Web browser.
A
simple view
on the latest developer version can be
found at:
https://anonsvn.wireshark.org/wireshark/trunk/.
A
comprehensive view
of all source versions
(e.g. including the capability to show differences between versions)
is available at:
https://anonsvn.wireshark.org/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/.
Of special interest might be the subdirectories:
